The Arrow and the Chalice
by hbndgirl
Summary: When a modern-day Robin Hood surfaces near River Heights, Nancy faces a moral dilemma in tracking him down. At the same time, a mysterious package sends the detective on a dangerous quest that seems to be related to a case from Carson's past. Part 2 of the Chapters series.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: Welcome back! I'm excited to be posting this a week earlier than I expected, but I've made so much progress on it so much faster than I expected that I decided not to keep you guys waiting any longer._

 _This is Part 2 of the trilogy that began with_ Curse of the Scottish Play. _If you haven't read that one, don't worry. It would make a few things a little clearer and this story will have some spoilers for that one, but you should be able to follow the overall plotline reading this one first. If you like what you're reading and you're interested in reading Part 3 when I post it, however, you are going to want to make sure you read both of the first two parts. Besides some_ _major_ _spoilers, the storyline in Part 3 will be hard to follow without knowing what happened before it._

 _There is a lot of ground to cover in this story, so that's why I don't beat around the bush and I jump right in. These first few chapters feel like they have more exposition than they should, but rest assured, there will absolutely be mysteries that won't be solved until the end of this story, and even some that won't be solved until the next story._

 _Much of this story is told in the form of flashbacks. To be absolutely clear, the flashbacks all are written in italics and begin with a heading telling when they took place. Hopefully that won't get confusing._

 _There is a great deal of emotional trauma in this story, as well as some violence. I don't get graphic, though, other than stating things like that there is blood present._

 _Finally, thank you, readers, for all of the support you've given me since I started posting my fanfiction. In particular, thank you to everyone who read and followed_ Curse of the Scottish Play _and all of you who will read this story. My especial thanks to everyone who posted reviews for the last story: Barb, BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, Iheartninjago2010, max2013, TinDog, and Guest. I appreciate your support so much, and for that, I am dedicating this story to you._

Chapter I

"Hannah! Hannah, help!" The desperate tones of eighteen-year-old Nancy Drew's voice reverberated through the Drew home.

Hannah Gruen, the Drews' long-time housekeeper, was just coming in the house from getting the mail when she heard Nancy's shout. At once, she dropped the mail on a stand near the door and ran for the staircase, where Nancy's voice was coming from. In Nancy's career as an amateur detective, she had run into danger more than a few times.

Because of that, Hannah was relieved to find that the only trouble Nancy was in at the moment was that she was struggling with a large box that she was trying to bring down from the attic. Nancy was balanced on the drop-down steps with the unwieldy box appearing to be in immediate danger of falling.

"What are you doing?" Hannah asked as she helped the girl balance the box.

"Thanks, Hannah," Nancy said, brushing a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. "I didn't think I was going to make it for a minute there."

"Are those the Christmas decorations?" Hannah looked more closely at the box. "Nancy, it's only December first."

"I know," Nancy replied. "I just thought it would be nice to surprise Dad by starting to decorate. You know he loves Christmas, and he's been so preoccupied the last couple of months."

"Well, go ahead, then," Hannah said. "But you're not going to set up the tree, are you?"

"You can't decorate for Christmas without setting up the tree, Hannah." Nancy feigned reproach. "That has to be the first thing to go up. Why?"

"It's just I'll have to start wrapping presents, then," Hannah replied. "You can't have a Christmas tree with no present under it."

"I need to finish all my Christmas shopping," Nancy commented. "I'm having a little bit of a hard time thinking of the perfect presents for everyone this year."

"You have that problem every year," Hannah teased her.

Nancy grinned. "I can't argue with you there. Do you have any ideas?"

"For who?" Hannah asked.

"Anyone." Nancy shrugged. "I have some small things for Dad and Ned, but I definitely want to get them something bigger. And then I haven't even got an idea for Bess or George."

"Speaking of presents," Hannah said, "I think there's one for you in the mail. At any rate, it's addressed to you and it's postmarked Bayport. I don't know what else it would be."

"Ah, Frank and Joe." Nancy said it with a sigh. "They didn't have to go to the trouble. Of course, I was going to get them presents anyway. They're really early with it."

She and Hannah carried the box of decorations downstairs, and Nancy went to look at the mail. The package in question was small, and it didn't have a return address. The only indication that it had come from the Hardy boys' hometown was its postmark.

Using a letter opener that was sitting on the stand next to the mail, Nancy cut through the tape and opened the package. Inside was a second, gift-wrapped package with a note attached to it. The unsigned note had been printed from a computer and read:

 _Dear Nancy,_

 _This might come in handy before Christmas. The New Year is always a good time to make changes and resolutions and become better. My resolution is to change my ways and become much better at what I do, especially after the way it turned out last time. Go ahead and open this package, and enjoy._

"Weird," Nancy commented.

"What is?" asked Hannah, who happened to be passing by at the moment.

Nancy handed the note over to her, saying, "This is. It doesn't even sound like Joe's sense of humor."

"Well, what's in the package?" Hannah gestured at the wrapped gift.

Shaking her head in confusion, Nancy slit the paper and slid a box out. Inside the box was a paperback copy of _Le Morte d'Arthur._

"Okay." She turned the book over in her hands and flipped through the pages to see if there was any indication of why it would have been sent. "I'm obviously missing part of the joke. I'll have to call those guys later. They'll be in school right now, though."

Bewildered, Nancy began working on the decorating. Even so, half her mind was preoccupied with the odd gift. She always loved a good mystery, and she was usually successful in solving them. She wondered if maybe that was the whole point. Maybe Frank and Joe had decided to play a joke on her by sending her the most random thing they could think of with a cryptic note. Something still didn't fit.

As Nancy was hanging ornaments on the tree, the front door opened without anyone bothering to look. Nancy ducked her head around the corner to see who it was.

"Hey, Nan." One of her best friends, George Fayne, waved at her from the door. "What's going on with you? It has to be more exciting than Bess. She's just setting up their Christmas tree. I tried to tell her she's going to be tired of Christmas decorations by the time it actually gets to Christmas, but she –" George paused as she reached the living room and saw the half-decorated tree. "- wouldn't listen."

"Since when were you the Grinch?" Nancy teased her.

"It's just that the stores have had Christmas decorations up since October," George groaned. "And it was just Thanksgiving five days ago. Shouldn't we just have some normal time?"

"We get plenty of that in January and February," Nancy replied. "I just feel like going ahead and starting the celebrating this year."

"But if you're so busy celebrating, you won't have time to solve a mystery," George told her.

Nancy shrugged. "I can do both at the same time. In fact, I've got a mystery that I'm dying to figure out right now."

"Then I hope you've got time for two mysteries plus a celebration," George said, "because I've got one for you, too."

"Really?" Nancy asked. "What is it?"

George pulled her smartphone out of her pocket and opened an Internet page on it, which she showed to Nancy. It was a news story with the headline: "'Robin Hood' Strikes Another Charity."

"I've heard something about that," Nancy said. "It's a thief that dresses up as Robin Hood and steals from charities over in Baker, leaving an arrow behind as his signature. I think he got the story a little mixed up. Baker's a good hundred miles from River Heights; it's a long way."

"So?" George asked. "As if you haven't solved mysteries in Egypt and Japan and Australia. Those are all a little farther away than Baker. Besides, what a cool mystery and it would be for a good cause."

"Hey, I'm not saying I'm not interested," Nancy replied. "I'm just saying it would take some extra planning since we'd have to be away to work on it."

"Maybe not." George pulled up a map on her phone's screen. "I've been watching this story in the news. The last few robberies have been in other cities besides Baker, and each one has gotten closer to River Heights."

"So you're saying he might be headed here?" Nancy asked.

"Nobody said you have to be smart to be a crook," George replied. "What do you say, Nan? Come on. It's been so boring around here. We need something to keep us occupied."

"You know me, George. When it comes to a mystery, I'm always in." Nancy grinned. "What clues do we have?"

"Not many," George admitted. "He's a bold crook, that's for sure. He always holds people up, with a bow and arrow, no less. For the most part, he only robs charity functions. He takes both the cash donations and any cash or valuables the people attending happen to have on them. Never takes credit cards or anything like that."

"He's only been around for a couple of weeks, right?" When George affirmed that, Nancy went on, "I guess that would explain how he's getting into these places. They probably haven't had much time to think about security precautions."

"Some of them have," George said. "He always gets around them somehow, though. You'd think a guy with a bow and arrow would be easy to stop, but this guy seems to know what he's doing."

"Has any of the jewelry he's stolen turned up in pawn shops or anything?" Nancy asked.

"Not that any news outlets have reported," George told her. "I think that basically everything. Let's get Bess and drive over there this afternoon."

Nancy was about to agree, but then she thought better of it. "Let's wait till tomorrow. By the time we drive over there and then have to drive back, we won't have enough time to do much investigating tonight."

"True," George admitted. She frowned for a minute until another thought struck her. "What about that other mystery you told me you had? Can we work on that still today?"

"I can show it you and see if you can make anything out of it." Nancy led George to where she had left the mysterious message and the book.

George was just as puzzled by it as Nancy and Hannah had been. She also flipped through every page of the book, but it appeared to be brand new. There was no writing or creases or anything else that could possibly hold a secret message. George even held it up to her nose and smelled it.

"What are you doing?" Nancy asked in amusement.

"They could have written a message in lemon juice in it," George explained. "It doesn't smell like it, though."

Nancy shook her head, but she said, "It's a good guess. I'm just going to call Frank and Joe tonight and see if I can get one of them to 'fess up about sending it."

"I guess that's the only thing you can do." George pulled out her smartphone and glanced at the time. "I'll head back to my place. On the way, I'll stop and tell Bess about the plan for tomorrow. She'll probably pretend she doesn't want to go, but she'd throw a fit if we went without her."  
Nancy laughed, but she had to agree. Bess was often less enthusiastic about mysteries than Nancy or even George, but she hated to be left out of them.

With two mysteries to think about, Nancy was too preoccupied to finish the decorating once she had finished hanging ornaments on the tree. She pulled out her laptop and began doing research on Robin Hood – both the original and his Baker imitator – and _Le Morte d'Arthur_. She was so busy reading about them that she didn't notice the time passing.

"Anyone home?" her dad, Carson Drew, called as he came in the front door. Carson was a prominent lawyer in their hometown of River Heights.

Nancy glanced at the clock in the corner of her computer screen with a start, surprised to see that it was already five-thirty and the winter sky was already growing dark.

"Hi, Dad," she called back as she got up to greet him. "Did you have a good day?"

"Not bad." Carson shrugged. "Nothing too exciting. How about you?"

Nancy's eyes sparkled. "Pretty good, actually. I started on the Christmas decorations and I have two mysteries to solve."

Carson chuckled. "Why am I not surprised? What is it this time? International spies? Organized crime?"

"Nothing quite that flashy," Nancy said. "One is a mystery package that I might be able to clear up in a few minutes, and the other is Robin Hood."

Carson's face took on a serious expression right away. "Do you mean the robber over around Baker?"

"Yeah. What's wrong?" Nancy asked.

"Did someone ask you to work on it?" Carson avoided the question.

"Sort of, I guess. It was just George, though," Nancy explained. "She's been following it in the news and she wants to look into it. I've got to admit, I'm pretty curious about it myself."

Carson looked a little relieved, but not very much. "What about the other mystery?"

"That one's a book," Nancy said. "It came in the mail with a very cryptic note."

"What?" Carson used the tone that he usually reserved for when Nancy was in trouble. "Where is it, Nancy? I want to see it."


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to EvergreenDreamweaver, Iheartninjago2010, Cherylann Rivers, and max2013 for your reviews on the first chapter. Your feedback means a lot to me, and I love it that you've already started making guesses about what's happening._

 _Just as an added note, Kate is the name of Nancy's mom in HerInteractive's_ The Silent Spy. _Mrs. Drew was also a reporter in that game (at least part-time), so I just went with that. Otherwise, this story is definitely in an alternate universe from that one._

Chapter II

Carson sat in his home office on the second floor, looking carefully through the copy of _Le Morte d'Arthur_ that Nancy had gotten in the mail. Nancy had seemed bewildered when he had requested that she give it to him, and even more so when he had told her that he didn't think it was from the Hardy boys. Right now, she was calling them to find out for sure. If Carson's suspicion proved to be true, he was going to have to have a long talk with her.

He sighed. It wasn't a talk he looked forward to having, but it would have to be done. It had to be done. Carson buried his face in his hands as he told himself that, repeating it in an attempt to convince himself. It was going to hurt to put all those old memories into words, and it wouldn't be any easier for Nancy to hear it than it would be for Carson to say it.

He closed his eyes, and it seemed as if no time had passed since those days as he thought back to them.

 _Fifteen years earlier_

 _"Do you have everything you need?" Kate Drew asked her husband Carson as she slung her purse over her shoulder, preparing to leave their New York City apartment for work._

 _"Don't worry about it," Carson assured her. "Nancy and I are going to have a great day. Isn't that right, Nancy?" As he said the last sentence, he picked up his three-year-old daughter and planted a kiss on her forehead._

 _Kate smiled. "I wish I could stay here with you two. It sounds much more fun than being in that stuffy, old newspaper office."_

 _"I thought you loved working for the paper," Carson told her._

 _"That was before I had you and Nancy – and our other little one." Kate placed a hand on her belly with another smile. "Somehow that cranky Alexa with the cubicle next to mine just doesn't compete."_

 _Carson laughed. "It's only two more weeks before I finish my internship and we can go back to River Heights. Then I'll be working for Weston Browning and you can go back to being a freelance reporter like you want."_

 _"That will be wonderful," Kate said. "I can hardly wait for the next two weeks to pass."_

 _She leaned over to kiss him and Nancy good-bye. As she turned to go, the phone rang and Carson picked it up._

 _"Hello? This is Carson Drew."_

 _"Carson, I need you to come into the office. Right now."_

 _"Now? But –" Carson started to say._

 _"No buts. We've got an issue here and we need you right away."_

 _"Okay." Carson tried to hide his disappointment. "I'll be there as soon as I can."_

 _"Be here sooner."_

 _"Who was that?" Kate had paused at the door to listen._

 _"My boss," Carson told her. "He says they need me in the office ten minutes ago from the sound of it. Uh, I guess I'll have to see if Eloise can look after Nancy today. It's her day off."_

 _Carson's unmarried sister, Eloise, lived in an apartment just down the hall from the one they had rented for their temporary stay in New York._

 _"I'll take her," Kate offered. "It sounds like you were late ten minutes ago."_

 _"Can't I go to work with you, Mom?" Nancy asked as she toddled forward to take her mother's hand._

 _"Not today," Kate said. "You'll have much more fun with Aunt Eloise anyway."_

 _"Hey, kiddo." Carson playfully tweaked Nancy's nose. "We'll spend the day together another day."_

 _"Tomorrow?" Nancy asked hopefully._

 _Carson shook his head. "No, but it'll be soon. I promise."_

 _"And maybe one of these days all three of us can spend some time together," Kate added. "Maybe it will even happen before it's the four of us."_

 _"That won't be for another five months," Carson reminded her. "We'd better be able to spend some time together."_

 _Kate grinned. "We'd better. But it's not going to be today. You and I had both better hurry or we're going to be late."_

 _As she and Nancy went down the hall to ask Eloise to babysit for the day, Carson hurried to throw on business clothes and grab the few things he needed to take with him. Fortunately, it was about the time he usually went to work, and he was just in time to catch the same bus he always rode._

 _Carson had just recently graduated from law school. He had jumped at the chance for an internship with the DA in New York City. His official position was as a legal assistant for Henry Shoemaker, one of the lawyers who worked for the district attorney. It was a good position, but he and Kate missed their mid-West hometown of River Heights. When Weston Browning, a lawyer back home, had offered Carson a position in his law firm, Carson had decided to take it rather than remain in New York after his internship ended._

 _Nearly three quarters of an hour had passed before Carson came practically running into Shoemaker's office. In addition to the lawyer, his secretary and two men in business attire whom Carson didn't know were also in the room with him._

 _"I'm sorry I'm late. I got here as quickly as I could," Carson explained._

 _"I didn't expect you to be able to get here any sooner," Shoemaker replied. "Sorry to have called you in at such short notice on your day off. I wouldn't have, but this seems to be urgent." The lawyer stood up and gestured to the two strangers. "These are Lieutenant Fenton Hardy and Sergeant Mitchell Johnson of the NYPD. Officers, this is Carson Drew."_

 _Carson shook hands with the two detectives and then looked questioningly at Shoemaker. "So what is this all about?"_

 _"The officers have already explained once," Shoemaker said, "but perhaps they would be willing to explain again?"_

 _"All right," Lieutenant Hardy spoke up. "We've got a murder case, and it's a strange one. Devin Matthias was murdered last night."_

 _"Any suspects?" Carson asked, listening intently as soon as the name hit his ears. It was one that had been discussed a great deal recently in the DA's office._

 _"Matthias was in with the Irish Mob," Hardy explained, although there was no one there who wasn't well aware of the fact. "With that kind of connection, we've got any number of suspects and motive."_

 _"True," Carson agreed. "What is it that makes this particular case so strange?"_

 _"It wasn't your typical mob killing," Hardy said. "His body was found in an empty house and the whole scene was set up to look like the murder scene in the first Sherlock Holmes book,_ A Study in Scarlet. _"_

 _Carson looked incredulously from one police officer to the other. "Seriously?"_

 _Johnson stepped forward, nodding earnestly. "I couldn't believe it myself when I saw it. It was set up exactly like in the book. The body had blood on it, but not a mark on it. There was a woman's wedding ring lying on the floor and the word_ Rache _written on the wall in red._ Rache _is the German word for 'revenge', you know."_

 _"I know. I read the book," Carson said. "So do you have any theories?"_

 _"I don't think Matthias was actually a Mormon from Utah who had kept a pair of young lovers from marrying each other." Hardy grinned. "So the solution from the book is out. We don't have any real ideas yet. All we've got to go on is the physical evidence. We still haven't officially determined the cause of death, by the way, but it appears to be poison just like in the Holmes story."_

 _"So there's no one to start prosecuting," Carson said to Shoemaker. "What do I need to do?"_

 _"It's not really unusual for the DA to help investigate a crime, especially when it involves organized crime," Shoemaker explained. "This part is a little bit unorthodox, but you've got a good head for this sort of thing. I want you to assist the officers in any way you can."_

 _Carson raised an eyebrow incredulously. "I didn't think the police encouraged amateur detectives."_

 _"As a rule, no," Hardy interjected. "In this case, it is a little different. Since you are affiliated with the DA's office, you're do have an official capacity. We're going to need all the help we can get in wrapping up this case as soon as possible."_

 _"If the Mob's kicking up trouble, we need to nip it in the bud," Johnson said._

 _"But what we're afraid of is that it's not even the Mob," Hardy added. "The whole Holmes angle concerns me."_

 _"Why does that make it any worse?" Carson asked._

 _"Honestly, the dramatics of it make it sound like a serial killer's game," Hardy replied. "That's even worse. At least the Mob has a method to who they kill. With a serial killer, you never know, even if you do figure out their pattern."_

 _"There you have it," Shoemaker said. "As I say, it's not orthodox, but if you're willing, Carson, I'd like you to spend the next two weeks working on this thing. I'll run it by the DA, but I'm sure he'll give his okay."_

 _Carson stopped to think. It wasn't an ordinary proposition, but it appealed to him. Still, he had to take some things into consideration. Investigative work didn't know regular hours, and it would likely take a toll on his family life. Not only that, but if either the Mob or a serial killer was involved there would definitely be an element of danger. That would certainly be something to consider with a wife and almost two children._

 _"Count me in," Carson said, his moment of deliberation ended. It was only for two weeks. How much could happen in two weeks?_

Present day

How much, indeed. Carson smiled a little bitterly as he recalled his decision that day. He knew it wouldn't have changed everything to have decided differently; it wouldn't have even necessarily changed the most important thing. For that matter, he reminded himself, some of the changes a different decision could have made would have been worse.

There was no point in dwelling on how things might have been. This was how they were, and he had to make the best of it. One thing he knew he had to do. He had to tell Nancy the whole story, no matter what she learned about the book.

This whole thing had come back to bite Fenton. Carson certainly couldn't have heard the end of it. He already knew how these people played; when they came for Carson, they'd get to him through Nancy. He needed her to be on the same page.


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading and following so far! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and BMSH for your reviews! You're all so encouraging!_

 _Several of you have commented that you're not terribly familiar with either_ A Study in Scarlet _or_ Le Morte d'Arthur. _Don't worry about it. All you need to know about the first is that it's Sherlock Holmes and there's a murder, and all you need to know about the second, I will explain when we get to a point that makes sense for that._

 _Also – please don't kill me after you read this chapter. I know all of you who read Part 1 have been wondering for quite a while about what Nancy is about to find out and doesn't share. I'll tell you, but it will take a lot more than one chapter and for the sake of the story, it's best not to get too far ahead of what Frank and Joe know about it._

Chapter III

"A copy of _Le Morte d'Arthur_ and a weird note?" Joe Hardy repeated over the phone after Nancy had told him about the book. "Even I wouldn't think of something that random."

"You're sure?" Nancy asked. "Not to disbelieve you, but you are my number one suspect here."

"Hey, what about Frank?" Joe asked.

"Do you really think I'd pull a trick that even you think is weird?" countered Frank, whom Nancy could also hear since they were on speaker phone.

"You can be pretty weird sometimes," Joe returned. "But in a very normal way. I mean, you're so normal, you're weird. You get it?"

"Not really," Frank said.

"Okay, guys, I really need to know for sure." Nancy made her voice as serious as she could, hoping the brothers weren't continuing to play a joke on her.

"I plead innocent," Frank told her.

"I didn't send it either," Joe added.

"Did he say that with a straight face, Frank?" Nancy asked, just to be absolutely positive.

"He did," Frank said. "I think you can believe him this time."

Nancy sighed. "To tell the truth, I was hoping it was you guys. You don't think there's any chance it was any of your friends?"

"I don't think so," Frank told her. "It's not really their style, and besides, they don't even really know you all that well. I don't think they'd pull something like this on you."

"All right," Nancy said. "It looks like this is even more of a mystery than I thought. Dad seems to have some ideas about it, though. I guess I'll just have to find out what he thinks."

"Call us back when he tells you," Joe requested.

Nancy promised that she would and ended the call. She looked up at the staircase with her dad's home office just beyond. It wasn't without a little bit of nervousness that she thought about the interview to come. Of course, she wasn't in any trouble and hadn't done anything wrong, she told herself. Even so, Carson had seemed so intense about this whole thing and she wondered what it could be about.

Taking a deep breath, Nancy made the plunge to find out. When she went into the office, she saw that Carson was sitting deep in thought, staring at the book as if it was some evil omen.

"Dad?" she said.

Carson roused himself from his reverie. "What did you find out, Nancy?"

Nancy shrugged as she sat down. "Frank and Joe both plead innocent. I believe them. I think I impressed the importance of a truthful answer on them well enough."

"I was afraid of that," Carson replied. "It looks like it's back again."

"What is?" Nancy asked.

"Nancy, it's a long story but I have to tell you the whole thing," Carson said. "You remember the Hardys talking about their case back in September?"

"The _Macbeth_ one?" Nancy replied. "Yeah. That was a pretty tough case, in more than one way. What does that have to do with this?"

"The way that case turned out, we still don't know for sure," Carson told her, "but Fenton and I both think it had something to do with a case that we worked on fifteen years ago."

"You worked with Mr. Hardy on a case?" Nancy's surprise was evident in her face. "You never told me that before. I knew that you'd met each other before, but I didn't know you ever worked together."

"It was while we were still in New York," Carson explained. "That was a really tough case, in more than one way. It took a heavy toll on both of us. Neither of us have had an easy time talking about it. It was so bad that even during that case back in September when Frank and Joe really should have known what they were probably up against, Fenton couldn't bring himself to tell them about it. I understand, but I can't agree with what he did there. That's why I'm going to handle this differently."

"Wait. You're going to tell me all about Mr. Hardy's mysterious case?" Nancy asked. "And you were involved in it, too?"

"That's right," Carson replied. "It's a long story, so just have patience."

Nancy listened eagerly as Carson explained the whole thing to her, from the day he got involved until the day Fenton and Carson had thought that that chapter of their lives was behind them forever. Through much of the story, Nancy wondered what had been so terrible. It seemed a routine, though serious, case.

Carson's voice shook as he neared the end. Nancy felt her own throat tighten as she fought against tears as her own few memories of that time came flowing back. By the time Carson had finished, Nancy could do nothing but stare at him transfixed, her lips parted slightly as a testimony that her thoughts were far from herself.

"That's terrible, Dad," Nancy said at last. "Poor Mr. Hardy. I – I don't even know –" She didn't finish sentence, unable to find the words for what she was feeling.

"So you can see now why Fenton is having such a hard time telling the boys about it," Carson went on.

"I under – but no, I don't really see." Nancy changed her mind in mid-sentence. "Frank and Joe would understand, and they really ought to have known."

"I agree," Carson said, "but I can still see why Fenton is having such a hard time. Never mind that for the moment, though. Right now we need to talk about what we're going to do. Specifically, do you still plan on working on this mystery?"

Nancy looked down at her hands, trying to compose her response. After a moment, she looked back up again and said, "Dad, I know you expect this answer and it's probably not the answer you want, but I don't think I'm going to get a choice in this. These people sent me the book and they want me to play their game. They're not going to just accept it if I say I don't want to play along. Besides, Dad, they hurt my friends, they hurt you, they hurt Mom. They need to be stopped before they do even more than that."

Carson nodded. "That's exactly what I expected, and I'm not going to try to stop you. You're right. There's no way out of this, as much as I wish there was. However, I will make one stipulation – we're going to have to work together on this."

"I've got no objection to that," Nancy replied. "Any ideas where we should start?"

Carson reached over and opened his laptop. "The place to start would be with our suspects. I should be able to find pictures of them."

It took him a few minutes to find what he was looking for and then he gestured for Nancy to come around to the other side of the desk to look at the computer screen. It showed a set of mug shots of a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty or twenty-one.

"This is Dan Moriare when he was first arrested fifteen years ago," Carson explained. "He received a twenty year sentence rather than life because – well, because he had a good lawyer. His lawyer played up Moriare's age – he was only twenty-one – and managed to convince the court that Moriare was neither the brains of the operation nor did he do the actual killings. However, Moriare turned out to be a model prisoner and he was able to get out on parole this past July. This is him now."

Carson changed the screen to another picture of the same man, but older. Though he was only in his mid-thirties, Dan Moriare appeared to have aged a great deal during his years in prison.

The next picture showed another young man who looked similar to Dan, but he was lying on a sidewalk, clearly dead.

"This is Cliff Moriare," Carson explained. "Dan's older brother. We don't have any pictures of him alive. According to Dan and his lawyer, Cliff thought out all the murders and was chiefly responsible for carrying them out. He imagined himself to be a sort of Moriarty, probably taking inspiration from his last name. That, according to Dan, is why he themes his crimes on Sherlock Holmes mysteries."

He moved onto the next set of pictures, which were all of a boy who was around seventeen years old. "This is the kid that gave Frank and Joe so much grief in September – Terry Shanth. If you look closely at him and the pictures of Dan and Cliff, you'll see a resemblance. We believe he's a relative of some sort, but we don't know how for sure. He disappeared and there hasn't been a trace of him since."

The next picture was a police sketch of a woman. "This is the only other suspect who escaped from the Hardys. We don't have a photo of her. This is a sketch based off of Frank's description. The name she gave was Helena Markovich. No one knows for sure what her role is or whether that's her real name. The men who were captured thought that she was just a messenger that Terry Shanth and his mother were using."

"Do you have a picture of Terry's mother? She's the one that they all said was behind it, wasn't she?" Nancy asked.

"That's right," Carson replied. "Here's her picture, although as you probably remember, she was killed back in September. As far as the police can determine, it appears to have been suicide, but of course, it's hard to know for sure."

The next photograph was of a teenaged girl. "This is Clarissa Margot. Her father was one of the Shanths' victims. She received multiple death threats herself and claimed that there were some attempts on her life. She also has disappeared. We don't know how or if she was involved, or whether she's still alive. She's certainly a person of interest, though."

He showed Nancy a series of other pictures, explaining that some of them were Cliff and Dan's original victims and the rest were the ones who had been killed in Bayport. Finally, he showed her the mugshots of the Shanths' accomplices whom Frank and Joe had helped capture, although they were definitely still safely in jail.

"Since most of those people you showed me are dead or in jail," Nancy said, "that only really leaves Dan Moriare, Terry Shanth, Helena Markovich, and possibly Clarissa Margot as suspects."

"That's right," Carson replied. "I can't help feeling that we're missing somebody, though. Moriare was accounted for during the Hardys' case and Shanth is just a kid. I doubt either of them could have masterminded that whole thing."

"What about Helena Markovich?" Nancy asked. "Couldn't she be the mastermind?"

"She could be," Carson admitted. "It's just that she was so insignificant the whole time. I don't know. We'll certainly want to investigate her, but it won't be easy since she also disappeared without a trace."

"Are you sure? It's not that easy to disappear now," Nancy replied. "There are cameras everywhere, credit cards, and you can't even get a hotel room without ID."

"They find a way." Carson sighed. "That's part of why I think Helena Markovich was using a fake name. We've no way of identifying her except by her name and this sketch. If the name is fake, then –"

"Then it's pretty easy for her to stay under the radar," Nancy concluded. "Well, how do we trace the untraceable?"

"By calling in the police to begin with." Carson reached for his cell phone. "We'd better also let the Hardys know what's going on. They'll probably be targets before too long."

"Dad, what about the Robin Hood case?" Nancy asked. "That follows the whole book theme these people have going on. Do you think that has anything to do with it?"

"It could," Carson admitted. "Why don't you hold off on going up there until this weekend? I could go with you then, or maybe you and the girls and Ned, Burt, and Dave could go together."

"That sounds fine to me," Nancy said. "Unless – maybe I should just focus on the Moriare case. It's a little more personal and maybe more urgent."

"But we don't have a lot of leads, and as you said, the two could be related," Carson reminded her. "I think it would be worthwhile to look into it."


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's note: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and following this story. It means a lot to me. Thank you especially to BMSH, max2013, Cherylann Rivers, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter. It's so encouraging for me to read those reviews, even if there were a lot of question marks in them this time! Don't worry – you'll see why I couldn't explain it all then before it's all over._

Chapter IV

"So what's this all about?" George asked. "It's not like you to cancel a sleuthing trip, Nancy."

Nancy, George, and Nancy's other best friend, Bess Marvin who was George's cousin, had gathered in Bess's living room the next morning.

"It's not cancelled, just postponed," Nancy assured them. "Something pretty big has come up."

"That's good," Bess said. "That means I have all the rest of today to finish decorating. It's the second of December. I'm late this year."

"Bess, you are so not late." George rolled her eyes. "You started decorating on Thanksgiving. As in the day of Thanksgiving. You've been decorating for almost a week. How are you not finished yet?"

"Not all of us just slap up some lights and call it decorating," Bess retorted. "It takes time to get it perfect."

"I think you've managed that." Nancy smiled as she looked around the tastefully decorated room. "This place could be straight out of a home décor magazine."

"Thanks." Bess also gazed at her handiwork proudly. "I've still got the finishing touches to do, though. Do you want to help?"

"I'd love to," Nancy replied, "but I've got a lot of work to do on this case, not to mention that I left the decorating less than half-done at our house. I'd better finish that up."

"I'm not even going to ask you," Bess said to George. "I already know what you'd say: 'Bah humbug.' Isn't that right, Ebenezer?"

"Ha ha. Very funny," George replied. "But seriously, you know I can't draw a straight line with a ruler or get anything even to save my life. I'll just have to figure out something else to keep myself occupied on my own."

"I'll see you two later," Nancy said as she went toward the door of the Marvin house.

River Heights was already buried under a blanket of snow. There had been a great deal of grumbling about it, but for the most part people were good-humored about it. After all, they had learned to expect it in the mid-West.

Nancy shook the snow off her boots as she climbed into her blue Mustang. It was a convertible, but of course this time of year, she kept the top up. She hesitated before starting the engine, as she thought out where she would go next. There wasn't really anywhere in River Heights where she could go to work on the case.

Finally, she decided to head home and start reading _Le Morte d'Arthur_. In the Hardys' case, Shakespeare's _Macbeth_ had been used as the criminals' model for their crimes. The note that had been sent with the book indicated that the culprits might be changing their tactics. Even so, it couldn't hurt to get as familiar as possible with the story.

She had just settled down with the book when her phone rang. The screen showed that it was Frank Hardy.

"Hi, Frank," she said into it. "What's up?"

"Hey, Nancy," Frank replied. "Is this for real? Terry and company are after you now?"

"We don't know anything for sure," Nancy told him. "Dad certainly thinks so, and it makes sense to me, too. You've already stopped them once. Do you have any ideas?"

"Not right off," Frank said. "I just have a question. Why would they be after you? I don't even know why they were after us."

Nancy bit her lip. This wasn't a position she wanted to be in right now. "Your dad never told you?"

"Told me what?" Frank asked.

"You'd know if he had." Nancy sighed. "Really, he ought to be the one to tell you. That case, you know, the one that had him so uptight? My dad was involved in it, too.

"That's interesting." Frank paused before he went on. "Nancy, I know we've got a sort of unwritten pact not to shoulder in on each other's cases without being invited, but I'm already involved in this one. What can I do to help you with it?"

"Just you?" Nancy asked. "What about Joe?"

"That's a little more complicated," Frank replied. "That case was pretty rough on Joe."

"Yeah." Nancy had been well aware of just how rough it had been. "Okay. That package was postmarked Bayport. Do you think you could track something down with that? And any extra information you can dig up on Terry Shanth or his mother or even Clarissa Margot might be helpful."

"I'll see what I can do," Frank promised. "I've got to go now. I only had a few minutes between classes to call. Talk to you later, Nance."

Nancy frowned as she set her phone down and picked up _Le Morte d'Arthur_ again. Any time Frank and Joe weren't working as an inseparable team, there had to be trouble in the air. She tried not to think about it and to focus on the story instead. It wasn't easy to do. The language of the book was difficult and a little bit dry.

The morning passed slowly as Nancy skimmed through the pages of the book, being more intent on getting the gist of the stories rather than reading them closely.

NDNDNDNDND

George shifted her position several times as she lay on her bed, playing games on her iPad. She would lie on her stomach and then on her back and then sit up, but no matter what she couldn't quite get comfortable. She couldn't get too into any of the games she had either.

With a bored sigh, she finally set the iPad down and stared up at the ceiling. She had been counting on a sleuthing adventure to break up the monotony. Now, though, Nancy had found another case and seemed to be putting the Robin Hood one on the backburner.

Then a thought struck George. Nancy was always solving mysteries on her own. Why couldn't George go solo on this one? After all the cases she'd helped Nancy on, she ought to be able to handle this one by herself. In fact, it might be kind of fun to get to be the detective for a change.

Excited by the prospect, she grabbed her drivers' license and car keys. Telling her mother that she wouldn't be home till late, she got in her car and started off on the way to Baker. It felt satisfyingly adventurous to be setting out on a case alone.

With the snow making the roads slick, it took nearly two and a half hours to get to Baker. By then, it was almost noon, so George found a coffee shop that also served sandwiches and stopped for lunch. The place didn't seem to be a particularly popular spot. In fact, it was empty except for a young couple who were about George's age.

As the waitress went to get her order, George noticed the couple looking at her intently. "Um, excuse me," she said. "Is something wrong?"

"Oh no," the girl replied with a giggle. "We just thought we'd seen you somewhere before. That's all."

"I doubt it," George told her. "I don't come over this way very often."

She would have been fine with ending the conversation there, but the couple wouldn't have it.

"Hey," the boy said. "I've got it now. You were at that tech expo last month in Chicago."

"Yeah, that's right," George confirmed. "Were you two there, too?"

"We sure were," the boy replied, excitement in his voice. "I never miss that sort of thing. Hey, my name's Dwayne Sventer. This is my girlfriend, Summer Merle."

"George Fayne," George replied.

"What brings you to Baker, George?" Summer asked. "It's not the sort of place that brings in too many visitors."

George found herself liking this couple. Besides, she could use some help getting pointed in the right direction. "I'm interested in the whole Robin Hood thing."

Summer nodded excitedly. "Isn't that the most bizarre thing ever but also the most exciting thing ever at the same time?"

"Well, I don't –" George started to say.

"Hey," Dwayne interrupted her. "Are you some kind of amateur detective or something?"

"Maybe," George admitted.

"That's cool," Dwayne said. "Hey, you know what you should do? One of the churches in town is having a dinner tonight that all the proceeds go to buying Christmas dinners for homeless people. You should totally go. I bet this Robin Hood guy's gonna show up there."

"That's an idea," George replied. "Thanks for the tip. Would either of you guys know where I can find the people who ran the other events that got robbed? It might help a lot to talk to them."

"Let's see," Summer mused. "There's been five or six of them already. The last two or three were out of town, though, so I don't know the people who put them on. We can give you the names for the people in town."

George made a note of the names on her phone and thanked her informers. While she was eating lunch, she looked up the names on the Internet and before long had found their addresses.

Calling on these people, however, was a disappointing business. None of them could give any more information than the news stories had. All she could learn was that a man wearing a half-mask and a Robin Hood costume had robbed each of the events, using a bow and arrow as a threat to get them to hand over the money. Twice he had made a dramatic entrance in the middle of the event and had proceeded to take cash and jewelry from the patrons as well as taking the cash proceeds. Another time he had held up the organizer of the event as she was getting into her car, and the fourth time one of the volunteers had taken the money home, intending to deposit it the next morning, but instead had found the robber waiting on her front porch.

George sighed in frustration as she got into her car again after the last stop. It was getting late in the afternoon now, and George supposed that she should be getting home soon. The charity dinner at the church sounded like a good possible lead, but if she stayed to check that out, it would be midnight by the time she got back home. Driving the winter roads in the middle of the night wouldn't be the greatest idea.

"Now I'm starting to sound like Bess," she said aloud.

She would wait for the event that evening. It might be her only chance to crack the case.

NDNDNDNDND

It was already close to ten o'clock. The dinner had been dull and awkward. George hadn't realized that it was going to a semi-formal affair, and her jeans long-sleeved T-shirt hadn't blended in well. So much for trying to be inconspicuous as she did her detective work. Nancy wouldn't have made a dumb mistake like that, she told herself. Nancy would have come prepared with a selection of clothes for any type of event in the case that one was happening that night.

George made the best of it, though. After all, she reassured herself, this was only one of her first attempts at solitary detective work. She could be excused a blunder or two.

Even so, the evening appeared to be a waste. No one had shown up in a mask and forest green to rob the collection box. Not only that, but George didn't have any luck finding anything out from the people there. She didn't have Bess's or Nancy's talent of chatting just anybody up, and that only got worse when she was already self-conscious.

The event wasn't over yet – apparently it was going till midnight – but George decided to give it up. It was better to leave the detective work to Nancy who actually knew what she was doing. Feeling rather foolish and disheartened, George made her way back to her car.

She was about ten paces from her car and she pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the doors. Just then, she thought she heard the crunch of a footstep in the crusty snow behind her. She turned around to look, but no one was there. More than a little suspicious, she hurried her steps as she approached the car. Suddenly, she felt an explosion of pain in the back of her head and then nothing.


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's note: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and following this story! A special thank you to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, BMSH, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter. I really appreciate you taking the time to tell me what you think or try to figure out pieces of the mystery. Each review always makes my day!_

Chapter V

 _Fifteen years earlier_

 _Carson surveyed the room before he entered it. The body had been removed, with the police leaving only a chalk outline of where it had lain. The two detectives, Hardy and Johnson, had told him that they and the other detectives on the case had already gone over the room, but Carson had thought it would be helpful to have a look at the crime scene himself._

 _It was a shabby, practically empty room. The old-fashioned wallpaper was peeling off the wall and there was a fireplace opposite the door. The floor around where the body had been was stained dark red. The letters that the detectives had told him about – RACHE – were written on the wall to the left of the door. Carson stepped closer to it to look at it._

 _"It doesn't look like blood," Carson commented._

 _"We took a sample of it earlier," Hardy told him. "We're still waiting for the lab results on it, but I'm positive it's not blood."_

 _"What about on the floor?" Carson asked. "I thought you said that Matthias had been poisoned."_

 _"Probably," Hardy said. "At any rate, there wasn't a scratch on him."_

 _"I thought you said you read the book." Johnson folded his arms importantly. "The victim was poisoned in the book and the blood belonged to the murderer."_

 _"It will be interesting to see the lab results on that," Carson replied. "I doubt the murderer planned on getting hurt and especially not on losing that much blood."_

 _"True," Hardy agreed. "He could have brought blood or even something else altogether for his purposes. Like I said, the whole thing is very theatrical. Whoever did this thinks they're an artist, and that smells of serial killer."_

 _"Why would a serial killer take on a mobster?" Carson had his doubts. "You said something about a wedding ring."_

 _"We sent that to the lab, too," Fenton said. "It was just a simple woman's wedding ring. Single diamond, gold band, size six or seven, I'd say. It was lying on the floor right about here." He pointed the spot out. "It could have just been a prop to keep up the whole_ Study in Scarlet _theme, or it could have some actual significance to the case. We just don't know."_

 _"Matthias just got out of jail, right?" Carson asked._

 _Johnson nodded. "A month ago on parole. We've got people already checking up on his whereabouts since he got out."_

 _"Sounds like you've got things pretty well covered," Carson said. "I'm not sure what you need me for."_

 _"We'll find a use for you," Hardy assured him. "For now, I spent half the night in this dingy old place, and I've spent all morning talking to the big brass, labs, lawyers, and the reporters that I couldn't avoid. What say we go get a cup of coffee while we throw around some ideas for what steps Carson should take next?"_

 _"Sounds good to me," Johnson agreed._

 _Carson also had no objection and before long the three of them were sitting around a table in a small coffee shop. Hardy and Johnson, however, seemed to have no interest whatsoever in talking about the case._

 _"So you're interning with the DA," Hardy commented. "That's not a bad internship. When did you graduate from law school?"_

 _"Just about a year ago," Carson explained. "I've had this internship since then, pretty much."_

 _"Must have been top of your class to land that." Johnson grinned as he lifted his coffee mug to his mouth._

 _"I wouldn't say that," Carson protested._

 _"Then where were you in your class?" Johnson asked._

 _"Seven out of eighty students," Carson said._

 _"I'd call that top of the class," Johnson replied. "I mean, you guys have to be dedicated to get through law school. Dedicated and smart. Heck, even being eightieth out of eighty students isn't bad when you take into consideration that just sticking to it more than an ordinary person could do."_

 _"It's not that bad," Carson told him. "Besides that, I had a lot of support. The first few years, my sister let me stay with her rent-free and even helped me pay for school. And then of course, my wife Kate's been more than supportive this whole time."_

 _"How long have you been married?" Hardy asked._

 _"Four years," Carson replied. "You've been dating since high school, though."_

 _"High school sweetheart, huh?" Johnson commented. "You're lucky. I had this amazing girl in high school, but then she dumped me as soon as went to college."_

 _"College sure taught her a lot in a hurry," Hardy joked. "What about your parents, Carson? You didn't mention them."_

 _"Um, yeah." Carson hid his expression behind his coffee cup. "My dad died when I was in high school. Heart attack. My mom already had cancer at the time and she died a couple years later."_

 _"I'm sorry." Hardy sounded sincere. "I didn't mean to be insensitive."_

 _Johnson shook his head. "Sometimes it surprises me that you can actually carry out an investigation without making a huge mess of it. Of course, you've got me to watch your back."_

 _"Careful, there," Hardy replied. "Remember I'm your superior officer now."_

 _"What about you two?" Carson asked. "Are either of you married?"_

 _"That's a negative on my account," Johnson told him. "You're talking to a confirmed bachelor here. I like being able to stay up all night playing poker with the guys or have my feet up on the furniture while I watch TV and eat nothing but carbs."_

 _Hardy shook his head. "I keep telling him he's not going to live too long if he keeps up like that. As for me, I'm married to the most amazing woman in the world, Laura. I know every guy says that, but for me it's really true. We've got two boys – Frank, who's three, and Joe, who's almost two."_

 _"We have a three-year-old, Nancy," Carson said, "and there's a second one on the way."_

 _"Congratulations," Hardy told him. "How soon?"_

 _"Five more months," Carson replied._

 _"I hope you can get an actual job by then," Johnson commented. "I hear kids can be pretty spendy."_

 _"It's not too bad while they're little," Carson said. "But I will have an actual job, thank you very much. A friend of my dad's back home is a lawyer and offered me a place in his firm."_

 _"That sounds like a good option," Hardy commented. "Where's home?"_

 _"River Heights. It's near Chicago." Carson eyed the detectives suspiciously. "Why do I feel like I'm getting interrogated?"_

 _"Told you you were obvious, Fenton," Johnson said._

 _"It's always a good idea to know who you're going to be working with," Hardy added after shaking his head at Johnson. "You can learn a lot about a person by asking them about their family and all of that."_

 _"Oh? What did you learn about me?" Carson asked._

 _"That I think you're going to be a big help in this investigation," Hardy replied seriously. "Now that that's sorted out, let's talk about this case. There's going to be a lot of leg work involved running down the clues we have so far. The biggest things are the ring and the poison. We should be able to trace where those were bought at."_

 _"We could get to work on the ring right away," Carson said. "Do you have pictures of it?"_

 _"Right here." Hardy pulled a couple of photographs out of his pocket and handed them to Carson. "How do you feel about starting in on making the rounds of the jewelry stores in the area with those pictures?"_

 _"Sounds fine to me," Carson replied._

 _Hardy handed him a list of the stores. "These are the best ones to check out. There are some pawn shops on there, too. If the guy was just looking for a prop, he'd probably go cheap. Any stores that aren't on this list, I'll have some of my men check out. This should keep you busy for the rest of the day, though."_

 _"What are you going to be doing?" Carson asked._

 _"Sleeping." Hardy held the back of his hand over his mouth as he yawned. "I wasn't kidding when I said I was up half the night investigating. If you get into any trouble, though, you can reach me at this number."_

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _By two o'clock, Carson had been to most of the stores on the list. None of the jewelry stores carried that exact ring, nor did any of them have a record of having it made to order. None of the pawn shops recognized it. There was only one more pawn shop on the list, and since it was in the area, Carson decided to try it next._

 _It was a sleazy, cluttered place with unswept floors and dust collecting on the items on the shelves. The girl at the front counter matched it perfectly with her thin, frizzy hair, sloppily-applied make-up, and grease-stained shirt that still had crumbs on it from lunch._

 _"Excuse me," Carson said, stepping up to the counter._

 _"Yeah? Whaddya want?" the girl asked in a tired, annoyed voice._

 _"I was wondering if you could tell me if you recognize this ring." Carson took the picture from his pocket and laid it on the counter, avoiding placing it in a puddle of some dark liquid._

 _"Is it stolen or something?" The girl didn't even bother looking at the picture. "We don't deal in stolen goods. We may not be a high-class joint, but we're no fence."_

 _"I'm sure," Carson said calmly. "I'm just trying to find out where it was purchased. That's all."_

 _The girl finally picked up the picture. As soon as she saw it, she straightened up in surprise. "Hey, where'd you get this?"_

 _"Never mind," Carson replied. "Do you recognize it?"_

 _"Recognize it?" The girl practically snorted in contempt. "I should say so. That's my wedding ring."_

Present day

A board creaking in the hallway interrupted Carson's thoughts. It was really a quiet sound, but in the middle of the night it seemed loud. Carson glanced at the alarm clock next to his bed. 1:24. He wondered whether it was Nancy or Hannah who was up and walking around this late at night.

He rubbed his eyes, wishing that he could get to sleep. The more he wanted that case to be put in the past where it belonged, the more it seemed to haunt him and to replay in his mind's eye. There had to be some way to get past it. He would just have to think about something else.

Trying to think of something else was almost as bad as thinking about it. Everything went back to it, and Carson felt like he was fighting a losing battle. Finally, he tossed the sheets away. If he couldn't sleep, at least he wouldn't lie in bed all night with just those memories to keep him company. He would go downstairs and turn on the TV. Maybe there would be something on that would distract him. Maybe he would even doze off. An armchair wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep, but it was better than nothing.

He was reaching under his bed, fishing for his slippers, when someone knocked on his door softly. "Dad?" he heard Nancy say.

"What is it, Nancy?" he asked.

"Dad, something bad has happened."


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who is reading and following this story. Thank you especially to Iheartninjago2010, BMSH, EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews on the last chapter! It means a lot to me._

Chapter VI

Nancy was sound asleep, despite all the mysteries that were rumbling around her brain. There was the Arthur case, the Moriare case, the Robin Hood case, and all of them might be related, or two of them, or none of them. Then there had been her conversation with Frank earlier, and she found herself worrying about what was going on with him and Joe, and why it was just Frank who was going to help her. She had thought about calling Joe. Joe was such an open person that she thought he might just tell her, but then she had decided against it. She didn't want to be that friend who was always prying into her other friends' business.

She'd managed to put that all aside and get to sleep. She was pretty good at that when she knew she was going to have to be well-rested for the next day. The next day was Thursday, and since Ned didn't have classes on Fridays, she had already called him and asked him to come up Thursday evening. Hopefully, they'd be able to get some detective work in. If they did, they would probably be up late the next night.

It was a sound enough sleep that a text coming in wouldn't have woken her. However, her phone buzzed repeatedly as a barrage of texts came pouring in. Sleepily confused, she looked at the screen of her phone which told her that it was a quarter after one in the morning and that she had fourteen text messages from George. In the time that it took her to see that, another text came through.

Instantly, Nancy was awake and on alert. George wouldn't send that many texts at this time of night without a good reason. That was why Nancy was utterly bewildered when she saw that all the texts were all exactly the same – just the one word: "Beaumains."

"It's too late at night to pull something like this, George," she said to her phone as she typed out a message asking what George meant.

She waited a moment and then another text came through: "You'd been given the answer already, Nancy. JK. Be here, or wait for the arrow to point the way."

"Okay, this is too much," Nancy said as she pressed the call button. The phone rang until George's voicemail message came on.

Nancy frowned. This didn't sound like George at all. After a moment of internal debate, she placed a call to Bess's phone. It rang long enough that Nancy began to worry that she wouldn't answer either, but then finally Bess's sleepy voice came over the phone.

"Sorry to wake you up, Bess, but is George at her house?" Nancy asked.

"How would I know, Nancy?" Bess yawned.

"Could you go to the window and see if her car's in the driveway?" Nancy tried to stay patient, but the strange text messages concerned her.

"Okay. Just a second." A few moments passed before Bess, now sounding more awake, said, "Her car's not there. Where would she be in the middle of the night?"

"I don't know." Nancy bit her lip. "I got some really weird texts from her phone, but when I tried to call, she didn't answer. But we don't need to panic yet. Maybe George's parents know where she is. I'll call them and tell you what I find out."

Although Nancy hated to wake George's parents and tell them the worrisome news, she didn't waste any time in doing it. George's mother answered and told her that her daughter had left that morning, saying she would be back late, but she didn't know where she had gone.

After this conversation, Nancy put the phone down slowly on her nightstand, thinking. Maybe George was just getting back late, like she had said, although this seemed like she was pushing it. Nancy's phone landed crookedly on the stand and she glanced over to see what she had set it on. It was the copy of _Le Morte d'Arthur_.

"Oh no," Nancy groaned as a thought struck her. She snapped on the lamp beside her bed, snatched up the volume, and began flipping through it. After a few moments, she came to the story she wanted – "Book VII: The Tale of Sir Gareth". She skimmed through it, feeling herself get tenser as she read.

Deciding she had better tell her dad this latest development, she jumped out of bed and hurried down the hall. When she reached the door of her dad's bedroom, she knocked softly and said, "Dad?"

"What is it, Nancy?" Carson responded right away and his voice was wide awake.

"Dad, something bad has happened," Nancy replied.

Carson opened the door a second later, a concerned look on his face. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Nancy told him. "It's not me. It's George. Just fifteen minutes ago, she sent me a whole bunch of texts that only say, 'Beaumains'. When I asked her what she was trying to say, I got a reply telling me I already knew and then it said some weird stuff about an arrow. Dad, George left earlier today and she's not back yet and no one knows where she went."

"Why are you so sure something bad has happened to her?" Carson asked.

"Because of this." Nancy held up the book. "One of the stories in here is Sir Gareth. His nickname was Beaumains."

"So what exactly does that tell us?" Carson's voice was grim; he already guessed the answer.

"Gareth went on a quest –" Nancy paused, "- to rescue a kidnapped woman."

Carson put a hand to his forehead with a groan. "Okay. Uh. We need to call the police. There's not a whole lot they're going to be able to do until we find out where George went. Who all did you talk to?"

"Her mom and Bess," Nancy told him. "Bess didn't know she was gone at all, and she didn't tell her mom where she was headed."

"Didn't you talk to her earlier?" Carson asked. "She didn't give any indication at all what she was going to the rest of the day?"

"No," Nancy said. "It didn't sound like she had made up her mind yet. I told you we were planning on driving over to Baker today, so she didn't have any other plans. She seemed pretty disappointed that I cancelled the trip." Nancy and her father looked at each other, the same thought occurring to both of them. "You don't suppose she would have?"

"Knowing George, it's possible," Carson replied.

"How are we going to find out?" Nancy sighed. "We don't know anyone in Baker to call, and you're not going to let me drive all the way over there in the middle of the night."

"You're right about that," Carson told her. "As for the first part, not so much. We'll just call the police over there and give them George's car's license number. You know it, don't you?"

"Of course, I do," Nancy replied. "I've got all that information written down for all of my friends. I'll go get it."

She was back in a minute with a notebook where she written down the license numbers of all her friends' cars and other information that might be necessary to know at some point in one of her investigations. Meanwhile, Carson already had the River Heights police on the phone and was filling them in.

As he was talking, Nancy's phone rang. "Hi, Bess," she said, answering it. "Sorry, I forgot to call you back."

"Well?" Bess demanded. "What's happening? Have you heard from George?"

"No," Nancy confessed. "Her parents don't know where she went. I'm afraid she might have gone over to Baker by herself to investigate the Robin Hood thing."

"She wouldn't do something that dumb," Bess said. "Actually, scratch that. She totally would. What are we going to do?"

"Dad's talking to the police right now," Nancy told her. "With the roads the way they are, we can't drive over there in the dark."

"The roads," Bess gasped. "If she drove all the way over to Baker, Nancy, you don't suppose –"

"Don't think about that," Nancy advised her. "I'm sure that's not what happened. From the texts I got, I think she might have been kidnapped."

"Kidnapped?" Bess burst out. "Nancy, that's not any better. It could be worse! What's going on? Why would someone kidnap her? Do you think it's this Robin Hood guy?"

"I don't know," Nancy told her. "I'm afraid it might be someone who's out to get revenge on Dad."

"Through George?" Bess asked.

"No, she's just the bait," Nancy explained. "What they probably want to do is get hold of me."

"That means they wouldn't care about George and they'd –" Bess started again.

"It doesn't mean anything of the kind." Nancy spoke firmly. "I said they want her for bait. She's only useful to them as long as she's alive."

"Oh," Bess moaned. "What are we going to do? Nancy, they must have given you some clue to check out. I mean, if they're trying to lure you to your doom or whatever, they have to push you in the right direction."

"I know. They should have." Nancy bit her lip. "Maybe I haven't looked at it hard enough yet. Don't worry, Bess. The minute it's daylight, we'll start a full-scale search. And I'll call the guys right away. They'll take the day off to come and help us."

"All right, Nancy," Bess agreed reluctantly. "If George tried to play detective on her own and got into trouble, I'm going to kill her the minute we find her. And if she's not in any trouble and she's just worrying us for no reason, I'm gonna kill her."

"It doesn't sound like she can win either way." Nancy tried to joke, but her heart wasn't in it. "I've got some more phone calls to make. If I find out anything before morning, I'll call you. If you don't hear from me, just be ready to go do some major sleuthing the minute the sun is up."

Carson hung up from his call at the same time as Nancy hung up from the call to Bess. "The River Heights police are spreading the word to the Baker police, as well as spreading a general alarm to the whole area. They're bending the rules a little since George is over eighteen and there's no absolute evidence that there's been foul play, but I guess a close association with you is enough to make it highly probable."

Nancy nodded with a sigh. "I guess I have caused a lot of trouble for my friends."

"And gotten them and dozens of other people out of even more trouble," Carson told her. "I was kidding, Nancy."

Nancy smiled weakly. "Sorry, Dad, it's just – Wait. Say that again."

"Say what again?" Carson asked, wrinkling his forehead in confusion.

"Kidding. Just kidding. JK," Nancy murmured. "It doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?" Carson shook his head as he tried to sort out what his daughter was saying.

Nancy pulled out her phone and showed her dad the text message that had come from George's phone, reading it aloud as she did. "'You'd been given the answer already, Nancy. JK. Be here, or wait for the arrow to point the way.' What do you think they mean that they're 'just kidding'? Do they mean I really don't have the answer?"

"Maybe they're saying the answer's not as obvious as it looks," Carson suggested.

"Their grammar is terrible, too," Nancy mused. "Do you think that has something to do with it? And what do they mean by 'be here'? Be where?"

Carson's phone rang before he could reply. He answered it and listened to the caller, making only a few one-word comments. After a few moments, he asked if that was all and then hung up. He looked at Nancy. "The Baker police already found George's car."

Nancy flinched. "They're certainly fast. Is – is that good news?"

"The car's just parked outside the hall where there was a charity dinner going on tonight," Carson explained. "The event got held up by 'Robin Hood.' George isn't anywhere around, but the police especially noticed her car while they were investigating the robbery."

"Why?" Nancy asked.

"Because somebody jabbed an arrow into the headrest of the driver's seat."


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's note: Thank you so much for reading this story so far. Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, Guest, EvergreenDreamweaver, sm2003495, and BMSH for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter VII

"I don't get it." Ned Nickerson frowned. "After you called me last night, Nancy, I looked up everything I could find on this Robin Hood character. Kidnapping doesn't seem like his thing."

He was standing in the snow in the parking lot of the non-denominational church where George had evidently disappeared, shivering as Nancy walked around, trying to find any clue that the police might have missed. Bess was also there, standing close to her boyfriend Dave Evans. George's boyfriend Burt Eddleton was leaning against Ned's car, looking like he was still in shock from the news.

"What do you mean?" Bess asked Ned. "He's a crook. Why would he stop at kidnapping?"

"It's just that, while no one will admit that this guy's given them any money, everyone seems to think he's doing the same thing with his ill-gotten gains that the original Robin Hood did," Ned explained.

"If that's the case, why's he hitting charities?" Dave pointed out. "That money would have gone to help people out anyway. Why not rob the rich if he's going to act out this whole fantasy?"

Ned shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe rich people have too good security for this guy to get past."

Nancy glanced up at the sky. "The police were right that there's no evidence of anything. They said it started snowing at about eight-thirty last night and it hasn't stopped since. It looks like this stop was a dead end."

"Nancy," Burt finally spoke up, "you know more about this than you're telling, don't you? Why don't you let us in on it?"

Nancy sighed. "I'm starting to understand Mr. Hardy more and more. Okay, but it's a really long story, so the main part is going to have to wait till later. For now, the main thing you need to know is that my dad worked on a case fifteen years ago, and it really looks like the people – well, the person – behind it is back for revenge, and they're trying to get that revenge through me.

"We don't know for sure that that's who it is, but it seems likely. For one thing, they've got a thing about books. In the original case, it was Sherlock Holmes. If another of our conjectures is right, a few months ago they were pestering the Hardys with _Macbeth_. Now it looks like they're going after me with both _Le Morte d'Arthur_ and Robin Hood.

"They sent me a copy of _Le Morte d'Arthur_ in the mail. Then they sent me some texts from George's phone that pointed me to the story of Sir Gareth. It's kind of impossible to not equate that story with kidnapping –"

"Maybe not for you," Dave interrupted, "but not all of us are into super old literature. Who's Sir Gareth? What does he have to do with anything?"

"I can answer this one," Ned spoke up. "I told you an English major would come in handy, Dave."

"I still say an engineering major like you started with would have been better, but okay. We'll let your English major have its moment," Dave teased him.

"Sir Gareth was the nephew of King Arthur," Ned explained, ignoring Dave's teasing. "He was the younger brother of Sir Gawaine, who was one of the greatest knights of the Round Table, and the half-brother of Mordred, who eventually betrayed Arthur and killed him. However, Gareth was the most humble and chivalrous of his brothers. He wanted to become a knight for his own merits, rather than because of who his uncle or his brother was.

"So he disguised himself as a kitchen boy and went to work in the kitchen of Arthur's castle. Sir Kay, Arthur's adopted brother, was the head of the household, so Gareth was directly under him. Kay didn't much like Gareth, and he made fun of him. He had some nickname for him –"

"Beaumains," Nancy supplied. "It's French for 'fair hands.'"

"Right." Ned nodded approvingly. "Anyway, at the feast of Pentecost, it was a tradition for Arthur to hold a huge feast with all of his knights and they would all wait for some adventure to befall them. This particular year didn't fail. A woman came into the feast, saying that her name was Lynette and that her sister, Lyonesse, had been captured by the Red Knight of the Red Lawns and she needed a knight to come with her and rescue her.

"Immediately, Gareth volunteered to go. Now, I believe Lancelot, who was Arthur's best friend, as you all probably know, knew who Gareth was, even though no one else recognized him. Don't ask me how that worked. I'm really not sure. Anyway, Lancelot assured Arthur that Gareth could handle the quest, so Arthur gave his permission to let him go.

"Lynette, however, was not convinced. She was downright furious that a mere kitchen boy was to be her champion and she was sure he'd make a mess of the whole thing. Sir Kay was another one who thought for sure Gareth would fail. He seemed to think it would be great fun to see Gareth get killed, so he followed him and Lynette. Lancelot also followed them.

"The whole time, Lynette was super rude to Gareth and was constantly telling him how he was going to ruin everything. Gareth just took it, though, like a knight should. Sir Kay caught up to them and he started in on making fun of Gareth, too. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but finally Kay and Gareth started to fight, and Gareth won easily, even though Kay was known as one of the strongest of all the knights of the Round Table.

"So Kay went home, surprised and unhappy. Lancelot had watched the fight, and he knighted Gareth before he went home, too. The whole incident hadn't impressed Lynette, though, and she kept right on being a pill.

"A little while later, Gareth got challenged by the Black Knight. Lynette was more than happy to see them fight because she thought Gareth would get killed and then she could go find a better knight to assist her in her quest. But obviously that's not what happened. Instead, Gareth killed the Black Knight and took his armor.

"Later on, they met the Black Knight's brother, the Green Knight. At first, he thought Gareth is his brother, but when he found out the truth, he fought Gareth. Gareth defeated him, too, but he didn't kill him. Instead, he sent him back to Camelot after making him swear to turn himself in to Arthur. Then the same thing happened again two more times with the Black Knight's other two brothers, the Red Knight (a different Red Knight than the one who has Lyonesse) and the Indigo Knight.

"After all of this, Lynette finally decided that maybe Gareth wasn't so bad after all, and started to be civil toward him. Just about then they came to where the Red Knight of the Red Lands was holding Lyonesse. Gareth fought him and he was as strong as something like ten men, but Gareth eventually defeated him but didn't kill him. It turned out the whole thing was supposed to be a trap for Lancelot, but Gareth made him swear to give up that idea. Then Lyonesse was saved and Gareth eventually married her."

"So, Nancy, you think that George got kidnapped and whoever did it is trying to get you to go on some sort of quest to rescue her?" Burt asked, raising an eyebrow just a little. "One thing I can say for sure is that they picked the wrong girl to play the damsel in distress."

"They just obviously don't know George," Nancy replied. "But, seriously, I think that's exactly what they're trying to do."

"Then what's our next move?" Burt looked at her almost pleadingly, as if he expected her to come up with a solution to the case on the spot.

"I guess we've got to go find a Black Knight," Nancy said. "At least, that's the only thing I can think of."

"There's not exactly a plethora of knights running around these days," Ned reminded her. "Where do we find this one?"

"Let's try the local newspaper," Nancy suggested. "It might ring some bells with them."

NDNDNDNDND

The office of the _Baker Gazette_ was modest and unassuming and, most disappointingly of all, closed. A sign hung on the door saying, "We'll be back soon."

"How soon is soon?" Dave asked.

"Not very soon with those people," a stranger broke into their conversation. They all turned to see that it was a young, sandy-blond woman who was no more than four or five years older than them. "I hope whatever you need isn't very urgent."

"We were just hoping to ask some questions," Nancy replied.

"Then you should try Jim's Grill. It's the gossip hub around here," the woman told her.

"How many people hang out at a grill in the morning?" Dave asked.

"You might be surprised," the woman said. "They serve a mean cup of black coffee."

Nancy narrowed her eyes just the slightest bit at the choice of words, a hunch forming in the back of her mind. She smoothed her thoughtful expression away behind a smile and held out her hand. "I'm Nancy Drew. I'm a detective from River Heights, and I'm investigating a case here in Baker."

"Ooh." The young woman shook Nancy's hand. "I've heard of you. Is it this Robin Hood case? I'm Lynn Morgan, by the way."

"Yes, it is the Robin Hood case. You seem to know a lot about what's going on around here. Maybe you can help us," Nancy said.

"I'd love to," Lynn replied. "How can I help?"

"How about you start by showing us where Jim's Grill is and then you can tell us everything you know about Robin Hood?" Nancy suggested.

"Okay, sure." Lynn waved her hand at the other side of the street. "Showing you where Jim's is is easy. It's right over there. Let's go."

As the others began following her, casting puzzled looks at one another as they did, Ned caught Nancy's arm and held her back.

"What is this all about?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "It's not like you to be so buddy-buddy with some random stranger that you met on an investigation."

"Trust me." Nancy spoke even more quietly than Ned so that he could only just barely help her. "I have a feeling that meeting someone named Lynn who went out of her way to use the word 'black' while telling us where to go is not a coincidence."

"Hold on." Ned stopped walking in his surprise. "You're saying she's in on it? And we're just going to do whatever she says? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"If I'm right, she's playing a game with us," Nancy replied. "Until I know exactly what that game is, the only thing we can do is play by her rules."

NDNDNDNDND

George groggily picked herself up off a cold, stone floor. Her head pounded and all she wanted to do was lie back down again, but that wasn't an option. She was shivering already and the floor was too cold – and it was damp, too.

There was a little light coming from a window near the ceiling. From it, George could see that she was in a cell that resembled an old-fashioned dungeon. The door was made of iron bars and the only furniture in it was a little wooden cot with a straw mattress. George sank down on it, only to find that it was damp, lumpy, and a little bit moldy-smelling. Maybe the floor was better, after all.

George stood up and started to pace around, miserable between her aching head and her constant shivering from the cold. She glanced up at the window and realized that there was no glass in it and snow was falling through. No wonder everything was damp and cold.

As she paced back and forth, George became aware of other footsteps besides her own. They seemed to be coming closer. Curious to catch a glimpse of her jailer, she went to the front of the cell and looked as far down the hallway outside it as she could. She could just make out the figure of a man in a forest green tunic and a Robin Hood hat coming toward her, and she readied herself to face her captor.


	8. Chapter 8

_Author's note: Once again, thank you all for reading and following this story! Thank you especially to max2013, BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter VIII

 _Fifteen years earlier_

 _Carson stared at the young woman, dumbfounded. For a moment, he felt like the dingy pawnshop was part of another dimension that he had unsuspectingly wandered into. "Your ring?" he managed to say after a long pause. "What do you mean?"_

 _"Exactly what I said," the girl replied. "That's my ring. I'll bet anything on it. I lost it a week ago. Where'd you find it?"_

 _"Do you have a phone?" Carson asked. "I'm going to have to make a call."_

 _"I only got a phone if you got an answer." The girl placed her hands on her hips and stared at him stubbornly. As Carson hesitated, she narrowed her eyes. "You found it at some crime scene, didn't you? I should have known."_

 _"Why? Do you think someone in particular took it?" The question came out before Carson even had time to think about it._

 _"No. Why'd you ask a dumb question like that?" The girl shrugged, but the gesture was a little nervous. "It's just, if you'd found it just anywhere and you were trying to find the owner, you would have put an ad in the paper or taken it to the cops. Are you a cop?"_

 _"No, I'm not," Carson replied quite honestly. "I – Well, I –"_

 _"You're a cop." The woman sighed. "Okay. Just go ahead and arrest me. It's not the first time I've been arrested even though I didn't do a thing."_

 _"I can't arrest you," Carson told her. "I couldn't even if I was a cop. You're right, though. This ring was at a crime scene. I'm going to need your name, though."_

 _"If I give you my name, do I get my ring back?" The woman eyed him suspiciously._

 _"I'm afraid not," Carson replied. "The police are holding it as evidence. You might be able to be a big help in the investigation, though, and so we'll need to be able to get hold of you."_

 _"That's not hard these days." The woman sighed. "The name's Joy Moriare." She chuckled bitterly. "It sure doesn't fit."_

 _"Carson Drew." Carson held out his hand to shake, but she ignored it. Feeling awkward, he asked, "Can I use your phone?"_

 _"To call the cops?" Joy asked._

 _"Well, yeah," Carson admitted. "But just to see if they have any questions for you. They won't arrest you, especially not if you haven't done anything."_

 _"Okay, sure, whatever." Joy shrugged listlessly. "I should just let the cops keep that ring. I'd rather if they'd just take the husband and not give him back, though. The phone's over there." She pointed at a telephone._

 _Carson went to pick it up, trying to decide what to make of Joy Moriare. He checked the notebook in his pocket and dialed the number that Lieutenant Hardy had given him._

 _"Hello. This is the Hardys," a woman's pleasant voice said in answer._

 _"This is Carson Drew," Carson replied. "Can I speak to Lieutenant Hardy, please?"_

 _"Just a moment," the woman said._

 _As Carson waited, the door to the shop opened and a man strode in. He glanced at Carson with a scowl and then got into Joy's face._

 _"What's going on?" he demanded. "That phone's not for personal use."_

 _"This isn't personal use," Joy told him. "The cops found my ring and they've got some questions about why it was where it was. I've got some questions of my own on that account, too."_

 _The man's face contorted with mixed rage and surprise. He turned on Carson. "You're a cop?"_

 _Carson squirmed uncomfortably. He didn't trust the situation, unsure whether it would be better to tell the truth or not. "That's close enough," he said finally, deciding to split the difference._

 _"What's that supposed to mean?" The man practically shouted it._

 _Before Carson could reply, he heard the voice of the woman on the phone return. "Hello? Are you still there? I'm afraid my husband's still asleep. Is it something important?"_

 _"Yeah," Carson told her. "Tell him I'm at the last pawnshop on the list and I could –"_

 _The man ripped the phone from his grasp and slammed it down on the cradle. "Whaddya think you're doing? Calling in reinforcements?"_

 _"Oh, for Pete's sake, you're only making things worse, Dan," Joy broke in. "You're such an idiot sometimes."_

 _"Shut up!" The man turned his attention away from Carson just long enough to slap her pale cheek hard enough that it flushed bright red._

 _"Look, buddy," Carson said. "That's no –"_

 _Sneering angrily, the man caught the front of Carson's shirt. "As for you, cop, you're not going to tell nobody about this." Before Carson could protest, he felt a heavy blow hit his stomach._

 _"Stop it!" Joy shrieked. "Dan, what do you think you're doing? Cut it out or I'm through! I'm leaving."_

 _"Don't mean nothing to me," Dan said, cuffing Carson's ear._

 _He must have let go of Carson's shirt, because the blow sent him reeling backwards, and he fell against one of the shelves. Several heavy objects tumbled off of it. Just as he blacked out, he heard Joy scream again and somehow got the impression that Dan had turned on her now._

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _"He's coming around now." The voice cut into Carson's consciousness, rattling around his head like a kettledrum. "We might not need that ambulance after all."_

 _"I'm still calling for it," another voice replied._

 _"Wait. I'm fine." Carson blinked his eyes, trying to focus on what was happening and remember what had happened._

 _"Hey, slow down." Someone gently held him down as he made a feeble attempt to sit up. Carson tried to concentrate and realized that it was Sergeant Johnson._

 _As Carson's head cleared, he realized that he was half-sitting, half lying on the floor of the pawnshop, pieces of broken merchandise all around him. Johnson was kneeling next to him, and Hardy was standing at the phone, holding it in his hand but he had evidently not placed the emergency call yet._

 _"You've got some cut on your head," Johnson went on. "One of those glass knick-knacks must have hit you. You probably have a concussion and you're definitely going to need stitches."_

 _"I don't need an ambulance," Carson insisted, his mind growing clearer. "I'm fine."_

 _"You mean stubborn," Hardy corrected him. "What happened? My wife said you tried to call me and then got cut off."_

 _"Ugh," Carson groaned as he tried to sit up again. This time, Johnson let him._

 _"From the looks of things, you must have cracked the case wide open," Johnson said with a grin._

 _"Maybe." Carson took another moment to straighten out his thoughts. "There was a woman at the desk. She said the ring was hers."_

 _"So she slugged you?" Johnson asked._

 _"Not her. Her husband, I think," Carson replied. "She let me use the phone to call the lieutenant. He came busting in her while I was on the phone. He hit her, and then he thought I was a cop, so that's when he hit me."_

 _"Did either of them give you a name?" Hardy set the phone in its cradle and looked at him intently._

 _"Uh," Carson said, "yeah. She said her name was Joy Moriare. She called the man Dan."_

 _"Moriare?" Hardy repeated incredulously._

 _Johnson whistled. "Well, if that's a coincidence, I'll eat my badge."_

 _Hardy rolled his eyes, but he said, "If that wasn't such a corny way to say it, I'd agree with you. If you haven't just solved the case, Carson, this has to be a major clue."_

 _"Sorry," Carson said. "I think I'm missing something. Should that name mean something to me?"_

 _"If you've really read the Sherlock Holmes books like you say you have, it should," Johnson replied. "Moriarty? Sherlock's arch-enemy?"_

 _"This guy wasn't really the Moriarty type." Carson flinched as he rubbed his ear where Dan had hit him._

 _"We still need to look into it," Hardy said. "It's pretty tough to believe it's not important."_

 _"First we need to look after Carson here," Johnson told him. "You sure you don't want an ambulance?"_

 _"I'm fine." Carson struggled to his feet. He swayed for a moment, but then he regained his balance. "See?"_

 _"You're still going to need stitches, man," Johnson said. "If he doesn't let us call him an ambulance, we're going to have to take him to the hospital ourselves, Fenton."_

 _"Good idea," Hardy agreed. "We can call his wife to have her pick him up."_

 _"She's at work," Carson told them._

 _"I'm sure they'll give her the rest of the day off when they hear that her husband's in hospital," Hardy told him. "We'll just need to wait a few minutes for our back-up to get here."_

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _Hardy and Johnson had asked a lot of questions on the way to the hospital. By the time they arrived, Carson had told them every detail he could remember about what had happened._

 _After the examination, the doctor confirmed that Carson had a mild concussion. He recommended that Carson stay in the hospital for observation, but Carson insisted on going home. Reluctantly, the doctor allowed it._

 _When he came out into the waiting room, Carson found Kate talking to Hardy and Johnson. Kate practically came running toward him when she saw him, an expression partially of worry and partially of reproach in her eyes._

 _"Are you all right?" she asked._

 _"I'm fine," Carson assured her. "A couple of stitches and I've got a mild concussion. It's no big deal."_

 _"Even a mild concussion can be a pretty big deal," Johnson told him. "Back when I was playing football in high school, I got a concussion and had to sit the rest of the season out. There were only a few weeks left, but still."_

 _"That must be what happened to you," Hardy said, looking serious. "It's a good thing that at least one of can still think."_

 _"You've got a terrible sense of humor, you know that," Johnson told him._

 _"What's this all about?" Kate asked, going back to the matter at hand. "You get called into work and the next thing I know the police call me and say you're in the hospital because you've been beaten up by a mobster."_

 _"We don't know that he was a mobster exactly," Carson replied._

 _Kate crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "Does that really make a difference?" She retained her stern posture. "You're playing amateur detective again, aren't you? And the police approve this time?"_

 _"Mrs. Drew," Hardy tried to appease her, "we realize there's danger involved in this, but we'll make sure nothing like this happens again."_

 _"That's good, but that's not what I'm getting at." Kate's stern expression melted into a smile as she shook her head. "This is so not fair. I'm stuck in a cubicle while Carson gets to chase down mobsters. If I would have thought you were going to get to do things like that, I would have applied for law school."_

Present day

Carson rubbed his head where the scar still was, trying to focus on the briefing he was supposed to be writing. Between that old case and the danger the Nancy was in and now George's disappearance, focusing was not one of his strong suits just now.

"Chris," he said, going to the door into the outer office and addressing his assistant. "Could you cancel my appointments for the rest of the day? Tell them it's a family emergency."

"Did something happen to Nancy?" Chris asked, looking up from his work.

"Not yet," Carson replied.

Chris gave him a curious look, but then he shrugged. "Okay. I've been around here long enough to figure out that disaster is always following the Drew family around."

Carson tried to fake a smile, but his assistant's words hit a little too close to home.


	9. Chapter 9

_Author's note: Thank you to everyone who has been reading, following, and reviewing, especially Cherylann Rivers, max2013, BMSH, and EvergreenDreamweaver who left reviews on the last chapter._

Chapter IX

As Nancy and her friends followed Lynn Morgan into Jim's Grill, Bess froze in the doorway. She was the first after Lynn and so she held the whole group up.

"What's the matter, Bess?" Burt asked. "Just go in."

"There's a black knight in here." Bess pointed into the dim interior, but no one else could see what she was pointing at.

"Oh, that?" Lynn's voice came from inside. "Pretty weird decoration for this kind of place, huh?"

"Nancy." Ned cast her a warning glance.

"We've got to play along," Nancy replied. "It's the only way we can find George."

When Bess finally moved aside so that the others could come through the door, they found that the knight that she had pointed out was a life-size suit of armor standing in a prominent place along one of the walls. Lynn guided the group to a table near it.

After the waitress had taken their orders for drinks, Dave nodded at the armor. "So what's the story there?"

"This place used to be called the Black Knight," Lynn explained. "That guy there was the mascot, I guess you'd call it. But that was a hundred years ago. When Jim bought the place, he wanted to completely lose the whole knight thing, but he couldn't bring himself to sell ol' Blackie or put him in storage. So there he stands to the bewilderment of every stranger who passes through the door of this place."

"I've always wanted to get a close-up look at a real knight in shining armor, even if he's just the shining armor," Nancy said. "Is it okay if I go and take a look at it?"

"You don't see any glass case around it, do you?" Lynn asked. "Jim doesn't mind. People are always looking at it, touching it, opening the visor and seeing if there isn't really something inside after all." The last words held a peculiar emphasis, as if they had a more significant meaning that the words themselves implied. However, Lynn hastened to go on to say, "You didn't come here to look at a rusty old tin man, though, did you? I thought you had some questions to ask."

"So I did," Nancy replied, trying to gauge what her next move was supposed to be and what it should be. She smiled, deciding to go along with whatever Lynn said. "About the whole Robin Hood case. You must have your finger on the pulse of what's happening around here."

"I tend to keep up," Lynn said. "What do you want to know?"

"What can you tell me?" Nancy countered.

"I could tell you a lot of things," Lynn replied, "but I suspect you're only interested in the truth."

"I'll listen to rumors, too," Nancy said.

Lynn smiled, but there was something in her smile that made Bess and the three boys shiver. Only Nancy stared steadily at her, although even she felt a strange dread about this woman.

"Rumors are often more true than what you take to be truth," Lynn said. "Do you really know if anything is true?"

"I didn't come for a philosophical debate," Nancy replied, struggling over the words a little. "Just tell me everything you know about the Robin Hood thefts."

"That's exactly what I was telling you." Lynn paused as the waitress came back with glasses of water or soda for each of them, breaking the spell. Everyone at the table breathed a little easier. When the waitress had gone again after being told that they didn't want to order any food, Lynn continued, "Here is what you think is the truth about this man. You think he robs charities for his own gain, defiling the name of Robin Hood. Here is the rumor – that he really is a Robin Hood. How much of the money you give to charities do you think really goes to whatever cause you donate it to? Much less than you might hope. So much of it goes for pointless things. He takes the money and makes sure that every penny is spent on whatever charitable purpose those who donated it meant it for. How can you track such a man down as if he was a common criminal? Doesn't that make you the criminal, Nancy Drew?"

The others all looked expectantly at Nancy, as if they didn't quite believe she could come up with a response to this.

Nancy took a breath and reminded herself of her main purpose. "He's putting himself and others in danger by doing it. He ought to be stopped for that reason alone. He also takes money that these people didn't intend to donate. Maybe they honestly can't afford it. Even if they can, it's their own money they ought to be able to decide for themselves how they spend it or who they give it to. But before you argue that I'm advocating to help the rich at the expense of the poor, I have another reason for wanting to catch this guy – a personal reason."

"And what reason might that be?" Lynn asked.

"I think you already know." Nancy raised an eyebrow significantly.

"I must confess I do not," Lynn replied. "But be that as it may. Nancy Drew may keep her secrets. I have to go now. We'll meet again."

She took a sip of the water she had ordered and then without another word strode out of the restaurant. When she was gone, it was like a cloud had passed over the sun and they hadn't noticed it until it was gone and the sun shone brightly again.

"She's a creep," Bess said. "What did she mean, 'we'll meet again'?"

"I don't like it," Nancy added. "Nancy, I think you'd better call the police about her."

"And tell them she doesn't think Robin Hood's a villain?" Nancy asked. "They can't arrest her for that, and she really didn't do anything else."

"She obviously is in on it," Ned insisted.

"On what?" Nancy sighed. "Don't get me wrong. I agree completely, but which case is she in on? Where does she fit? We don't have any real proof. Like I said, we're just going to have to play by their rules until we figure out what's really going on."

"That seems like a dangerous game, Nancy," Burt said. "What if you're putting George in even more danger?"

"Believe me, Burt," Nancy replied, "I'm trying my hardest to keep George out of danger. They won't hurt her until they've finished with her, and they won't finish with her until I've played the whole game."

"But what do they really need her for?" Burt insisted. "Do they need her alive to lure you into a trap?"

Nancy didn't respond, not wanting to put her thoughts into words. She had spent most of the night before pondering that question, and she didn't like the answer she came up with. Either they needed George alive and they would keep her that way as long as their plan was working, or it didn't matter to them. If it was the latter, Nancy had no doubt that they would be too late already, but she didn't see any point in saying so.

Bess shuddered. "Well, if we've got to play along with these maniacs, let's not waste any time. She wanted you to check out that suit of armor pretty bad, Nancy."

Nancy stood up and went to examine the armor closely. She saw nothing on the outside, but then she remembered Lynn's comment about there being something inside it. Standing on her toes to be able to see high enough, she lifted the visor. A rolled-up piece of paper was stuck inside it. Nancy pulled it loose and read it: "To the victor go the spoils, Sir Gareth."

"This has to be what she wanted me to see," Nancy said, returning to the table and showing her friends the note.

"Well, the Sir Gareth part is as much a giveaway as if she had gone ahead and addressed it to you," Bess commented, "but what does it mean?"

The others thought for a few minutes, and then Dave snapped his fingers. "Ned said that Gareth defeated the Black Knight and took his armor, right? Maybe they want us to take the armor."

"We can't just take it," Bess protested, "and I doubt this Jim guy will sell it to us. Even if he did, do you know how much a suit of armor would cost?"

"No," Dave replied. "How much?"

"I don't know," Bess said. "It's probably a lot."

"There's only one way to find out." Nancy caught the waitress's eye and waved her over to the table.

"Is there anything else I can get for you?" the girl asked brightly.

"I was just wondering if you knew the woman who came in here with us," Nancy replied.

The waitress shook her head. "I've never seen her before, but that's not too unusual, especially in the last few weeks. There have been a lot of out-of-towners hanging around ever since Robin Hood showed up."

"How do you feel about Robin Hood?" Nancy asked, point-blank.

"Well, I – If –" the waitress stammered. "I guess, if he's giving the money to people who really need it, what's the harm? That's what the charities were going to do with it anyway."

"How do you know that's what he's doing?" Nancy pressed.

The girl looked flustered and began to stutter and stammer around even more. "I – I just assumed –"

"Hey, it's not a big thing," Nancy reassured her. "I was just curious. There's one other thing I'm curious about – that suit of armor."

"Oh, yeah." The waitress glanced over her shoulder at it. She still seemed rather shaken. "Pretty random. What about it?"

"More like pretty cool," Nancy replied. "You don't suppose there'd be any chance of the owner of this place being willing to sell it, do you?"

"I wouldn't know," the waitress said. "You could ask. Jim's here today. I'll go get him."

She seemed relieved to have an excuse to hurry away. A few minutes later, a man approached the table and introduced himself as Jim.

"I hear you're interested in buying the Tin Man," he said.

"Yes, if you're willing to sell him," Nancy replied.

"The old thing's just gathering dust." Jim glanced from the armor to Nancy. "What would you want with a thing like that, though?"

Nancy shrugged and smiled. "Like I told the waitress, it's pretty cool. How much are you asking?"

Jim wrinkled his brow thoughtfully. "I've got no idea what it's worth. Don't you have some idea?"

"I'll check." Bess pulled out her smartphone and typed in "how much does a suit of armor cost" in a search engine. She caught her breath when she saw the prices. "It looks like anywhere from eight hundred to several thousand dollars."

"Of course, those are in better condition than Rusty over there," Dave hastened to point out.

Jim rubbed his chin thoughtfully, glancing at the armor and then back at Nancy. Clearly, he hadn't considered before that he had something of any value in that old piece of iron. Nancy began giving up hope that he would sell it for a price she could afford.

"Look –" Nancy started to say.

"Now, ma'am," Jim said at the same time, and he prevailed. "I can't sell that old thing just yet. If you leave your name and phone number, I'll get back to you when I can sell it."

"I'm afraid I need it right away," Nancy replied. "Isn't there some way you could sell it now?"

"No, sorry," Jim told her. "I'd like to, especially if it's a thousand bucks just sitting around, but I can't just now. I'll call you in a few days."

Nancy sighed. "Never mind. It will be too late then."

"Suit yourself." Jim shrugged and started to walk away, but then he started laughing at his own inadvertent pun.

"What now?" Ned asked.

"I don't know," Nancy admitted, "but I have a feeling they'll let us know soon."


	10. Chapter 10

_Author's Note: Once again, thank you all so much for reading and following this story. Thank you especially to BMSH, EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, and Cherylann Rivers for your reviews._

Chapter X

"What is with detectives and stake-outs?" Dave groaned as the entire group sat in Ned's car, with Dave, Bess, and Burt crowded into the back seat. "Isn't there any other way to find things out?"

Ned had parked his car in a parking lot a block up and on the other side of the street from Jim's Grill. At first, they had all been watching the restaurant intently, but by now Nancy was the only one determined enough to keep a very close watch.

"And what's with non-detectives and how much they hate stake-outs?" Nancy teased him. "What easier way is there to find things out?"

"Well, I can think of much more fun ways," Dave replied.

"We won't have to be here much longer," Nancy assured him. "Dad took the rest of the day off, and he'll be here in about half an hour. In the meantime, we can see if we spot any of the suspects going into Jim's. The whole business with the armor is making me a little suspicious."

"You know, Nancy," Bess spoke up, "none of us know what any of the suspects look like except you. Well, except Lynn Morgan, I guess. I don't think we're going to be too helpful to you."

"Morgan," Ned repeated, shaking his head. "I hope she did want us to figure out that she's one of them, because she was really obvious. Don't forget that Arthur had a half-sister who was a witch and was named Morgan le Fey."

"Why didn't we have her arrested while we had the chance?" Burt demanded. "You knew what she was up to, Nancy, and you just let her get away. Why?"

"To begin with, knowing what she's doing and proving it are two different things," Nancy replied. "We would need proof to go to the police. We don't have it."

"Jim sure has a lot of business, considering it's after the lunch hour." Ned changed the subject. "I wonder why that is. Restaurants don't usually have so many people going in and out of them in the middle of the afternoon."

Nancy cast a grateful smile at him. "I don't know."

"Do you think it's a clue?" Bess asked. "They're not very high-class. Most of the people who have gone in there, that is. A lot of them have old clothes, and the ones that drive have mostly old cars. A lot of them walk, too. Do you think it means something?"

"It could just mean it's an affordable place to eat," Nancy replied. "You can't deny the prices on their menu were very reasonable."

Just then, Nancy's phone rang. "Hi, Frank," she said, picking it up. "Do you have any news?"

"Some," Frank replied. "It's not too good."

Nancy felt her heart sink a little even before she heard what he had to say. She certainly did not need any more bad news on this case. "What is it?"

"First of all, I've been looking into Terry Shanth and his mother," Frank replied. "Turns out, that's not so easy to do."

"Why is that?" Nancy asked.

"Because until about twelve years ago, they didn't exist," Frank explained. "I can't find anything on them. Apparently, Rodonna Shanth somehow came up with false IDs for herself and her son. We can trace them for the last twelve years, but not before that. There's nothing to indicate what they were trying to hide in anything they did after that. They just moved around a lot, mostly on the West Coast, but I don't see how that proves anything."

"Interesting," Nancy said. "So we don't know the real names of most of our suspects now. Wonderful. Was there anything else?"

"Yeah. Dan Moriare is in Chicago," Frank replied. "As far as I can tell, he's just living there, but watch your back anyway."

"Thanks for the warning," Nancy told him. "So, how's Joe these days?"

"He's Joe," Frank said. "Anyway, I've got to get to class, Nancy. I'll talk to you later."

He ended the call, and Nancy mulled over what he had said silently for a moment or two. Then her friends began to ask what had been said, and so Nancy repeated the information to them.

More time passed, and nothing of interest happened. Then, finally, there was one scene that was a little out of the ordinary. A teenage couple were walking down the street. They turned to go into Jim's Grill, but they stopped short when a man of about thirty came out at the same time. For a few seconds longer than was natural, he stared at them and they stared at him before the couple finally seemed to change their minds and continued on their way down the street. The man stared at them for another moment more and then began walking quickly in the other direction.

"I wonder what was up with that," Dave commented. "Is that what we've been waiting for, Nancy?"

"Maybe." Nancy held up her phone and snapped a picture of the man, who was facing toward the car and its watching passengers. Unfortunately, the teenagers had been facing away the entire time, and Nancy never had seen their faces.

NDNDNDNDND

Carson arrived at the time he had said he was going to. After that, they abandoned the stake-out to make other plans. After some debate, they decided to split into two groups – Nancy, Ned, and Carson would try to find out anything they could about Lynn Morgan and Bess, Dave, and Burt would gather information on Robin Hood.

The search took the rest of the afternoon and yielded very few results. Bess and the two boys couldn't find out anything new, and all that the others learned was that no one in town seemed to have any idea who Lynn Morgan was.

Because it was late by then, they decided to get rooms at the one hotel in town and continue searching in the morning. There was a small restaurant attached to the hotel, and so they went there for supper. Most of them, though, only picked at their food, preoccupied with worry about George. It was getting close to twenty-four hours since her disappearance now, and with the fading light, their spirits were beginning to fade as well.

Nancy pulled the note that she had found in the knight's helmet out of her pocket and looked at it again, thinking. Maybe she had been too hasty earlier in assuming that she needed the black knight's armor. Surely Lynn had known that Nancy wouldn't be able to buy it. In that case, there must be something else that she needed to do with the armor.

On the other hand, maybe it had been a test – a test that Lynn had known Nancy would fail. If Lynn was a criminal, she wouldn't have hesitated to just steal the armor. Maybe that's what she wanted Nancy to do. If that was the case, then Nancy had already blown everything.

Taking a breath, Nancy told herself to think calmly about this. After all, what good would having the armor do her? Surely, even in the twisted mind of whoever was really behind this, she wasn't expected to use the armor as armor. There must be something else to the whole thing. There must be something more to that suit of armor than met the eye.

More than could be seen. Nancy sat up straighter at the idea. Of course! That could just be it. The trouble was, there was only one way to find out, and generally none of the rest of the group approved of that. Biting her lip, Nancy considered her options. If she was right, it would be worth any risk to check it out. If she was wrong, it would only take a moment to find out and no one else would know about it. She hated going off without telling anyone, but they would argue and possibly even talk her out of it. She couldn't take that chance.

NDNDNDNDND

It was close to midnight when Nancy slipped out of the hotel, leaving only a note behind to tell the others not to worry about her if her absence should be discovered. It was very dark, which Nancy was glad about, and the streets of Baker were deserted. Borrowing Ned's car, Nancy drove down a handful of streets until she was in the vicinity of Jim's Grill. She parked a few blocks up and walked the rest of the way.

When she arrived at the restaurant, she walked down the alley next to it, where it was practically pitch black. She used the dim illumination of her phone's screen to see where she was going, but she didn't use the flashlight for fear that would be noticed by someone. A short way down the alley, she came to a backdoor into the restaurant.

Nancy had found before that lockpicking was a useful skill to have, especially as a detective. She had the door open in a few moments, hoping there wouldn't be an alarm wire to it. She paused for a moment, but she heard no tell-tale beeping, and so she made her way inside.

The armor was in the main dining room of the restaurant and was visible through the windows to the street. Nancy considered this and decided she would just have to go without light so that she wouldn't be seen. This was easier said than done, and she had bumped into a table and knocked over a few chairs until she finally found herself crouching at the feet of the black knight.

Very carefully, she began feeling the thing with her hands to get some idea of how it was held together. When she had finally determined that she could take one of the legs off without the whole thing collapsing, she set about trying to do so. Fortunately, it wasn't too hard and she was soon holding the metal boot in her hand. She reached down into it. Nothing.

A little disappointed but hardly discouraged, she replaced the boot and removed the other one. She felt her heart beat a little faster as she realized that this one was heavier than its partner had been. With a thrill of excitement, she tried to reach inside, but it was filled nearly to the top with paper. Nancy knew by the feel that it was United States currency.

No wonder Jim couldn't sell the suit of armor for a few more days, she thought to herself. It made a perfect hiding place. No one would ever notice it by accident. The only way they could find anything hidden inside would be if they were looking for it.

Still, there were several questions remaining. Why was Jim hiding this money? Was this what Lynn wanted Nancy to find? If so, what was she supposed to do with it? If not, what was she supposed to look for?

Nancy turned the bills over in her hands as she contemplated the situation. Of course, she would have to leave the money there, but then how would Lynn - or whoever Lynn was working for - know that she had found it? What could Nancy do?

She decided she had better just put it back and wait and see. If this was what those people wanted, they would surely have some way of knowing that Nancy had found it. If not, it was back to square one. She was just preparing to stand up when she heard a sound behind her that made her heart stand still – a footstep.

Slowly she turned around. There in the dark shadows of the restaurant was another, darker shadow. It was standing next to one of the tables. As Nancy watched, it suddenly struck a match and lit a candle that was in the centerpiece of the table. By this light, she saw that it was a man dressed in predominantly green medieval clothing with a half-mask over the lower part of his face.

All of this, Nancy took in in a moment, for her eyes were rivetted on what the man was holding in his hands – a bow and arrow that were pointed straight at her.


	11. Chapter 11

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and following this story! Thank you especially to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and Cherylann Rivers._

Chapter XI

 _Fifteen years earlier_

 _"Dad, hold this." Three-year-old Nancy placed a toy bird in Carson's hand as he sat on the couch in their apartment, holding an ice-pack to his still-aching head. Nancy, meanwhile, continuing lining up several other toy animals on the floor._

 _"What are they doing?" Carson asked. "Having a parade?"_

 _"No." Nancy looked up at him with a confused expression, as if she couldn't believe that he didn't understand her game. "They're the suspects."_

 _"Oh." Carson grinned. "It must be a big case."_

 _Nancy nodded gravely. "Feathers was kidnapped."_

 _"Is this Feathers?" Carson held up the bird he was holding._

 _"Uh huh." Nancy turned back to the more serious business of playing._

 _Carson watched her for a while, passing the toy bird back and forth in his hands. His mind began to drift back to the case as he tried to fit the pieces into place. He wondered what the Moriares had to do with it all and where they had gone, as well as whether the police had found them yet. It had only been a day since his run-in with Dan, but he hadn't heard a word since then and he was beginning to get anxious._

 _Kate came into the room with a cup of hot tea and sat down next to Carson with a deep sigh. "It's nice to have a day off. How's your head feeling?"_

 _Carson grimaced. "Don't remind me. I'm just hoping Mr. Shoemaker doesn't decide to take me off the case after this."_

 _"I don't suppose there's any chance of you needing some help on it," Kate said. "Maybe we can get it solved and then head back to River Heights a little early."_

 _Carson grinned as he put his arm around her shoulders. "You know perfectly well that if you were working on this case, you wouldn't want it to end early."_

 _"No, I suppose not," Kate replied with a grin._

 _Just then, the doorbell rang._

 _"Never a moment's peace," Kate complained good-naturedly as she got up to open the door._

 _Detectives Hardy and Johnson were outside. They apologized for disturbing Kate at home and then asked if Carson was around. She led them into the living room. Nancy looked up from her play, and being a little frightened by the strangers, crawled up on the coach to sit next to her father. Kate sat down on the other side of him, while the detectives took the two armchairs._

 _"I was beginning to think you were investigating without me," Carson said, after greeting the two men._

 _"We were," Johnson told him, grinning as he did._

 _"Just research-based investigating," Hardy added, casting a somewhat exasperated glance at his partner. "Now we need you for our next step."_

 _Carson put the ice-pack up to his head again. "You're sure I'm the right man for it? You saw what happened last time."_

 _Hardy nodded. "You got us our first big break. Thanks to what you found out, we've got a pretty good idea of where to look next. You see, we pulled all our files on Joy Moriare – you said that she said she had been arrested, so we had to have records – and, acting on your theory that Dan is her husband, we checked out the name Dan Moriare. They both paid off."_

 _"Except you were wrong about Joy and Dan being married," Johnson spoke up. "Joy's married to Dan's brother, Cliff."_

 _"Either way," Hardy continued, "we were able to find out a lot about them, and it seems to fit in. Joy's arrests are mostly for petty thefts when she was a teenager. She's only twenty now, and she hasn't been caught stealing for three years. She got married then to Cliff Moriare, and even if she hasn't been arrested, I doubt she's gotten cleaned up any."_

 _"Why do you say that?" Kate asked, just as interested in the conversation as any of the men were._

 _"Mainly because Cliff and Dan have been in nothing but trouble since they were ten and eight," Hardy explained. "That was their first run-in with the law when they purposely smashed the windows on several cars in a parking lot near their home at that point. Since then they've been arrested for or suspected of dozens of crimes, ranging from vandalism to grand theft to voluntary manslaughter."_

 _"No actual first-degree murder charges, though?" Carson asked. "It would be pretty tough for me to believe that this was anything else."_

 _"No," Hardy admitted. "They've been acquitted of all their more serious charges, as well. Neither of them have jobs, though, from what we can see. Joy has her job at the pawnshop, but naturally she didn't show up for work today."_

 _"But that's not the big reason we think you've found our murderers for us," Johnson interjected. "The Moriare brothers' father was Randy Moriare. About five, six years ago, he turned up dead in the river. It all came out that he was working as an errand boy for – you guessed it – the Irish Mob. And you know who the main suspect in the murder case was?"_

 _"It's not too hard to guess," Carson replied. "Devin Matthias?"_

 _"Bingo." Johnson nodded knowingly. "That was just about the time he got arrested for complicity in some illegal mob 'business ventures'. He turned state's evidence on some guys that we all but had in jail anyway, so the murder charge got dropped. Okay, they said that they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute, but I smelled something fishy then, and I still think that's the case."_

 _"Wait, so you're saying that Cliff and Dan killed Matthias to avenge their father?" Carson unconsciously used the toy bird he was holding to point at Johnson and emphasize his words. When he caught Johnson's bemused expression, he realized what he was holding and hastily handed it off to Nancy. "Anyway. Is that what you're saying?"_

 _"That's exactly what we're saying," Johnson said._

 _"It seems like a good possibility." Hardy modified his partner's confidence. "We've got their addresses, but they seem to have split. That just makes it all the more likely."_

 _"So what do you want me to do?" Carson asked._

 _"We had a hard time pitching this idea to the big brass," Johnson explained. "They weren't crazy about putting a civilian in this position."_

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _"Man, you have got the most patient kid I have ever seen," Johnson was saying. "You said she's what? Three? And she just sat there and listened the whole time. That's nothing like Fenton's two holy terrors."_

 _Carson shrugged. "Nancy's just always been that way. She always wants to know what's going on and she will sit still and listen if that's what it takes to find out."_

 _It was late the next afternoon, with evening coming on in an hour or so. The two men were walking from the parking lot of a tenement building to one of the apartments. Meanwhile, Hardy was hanging in the background, watching in case something went wrong._

 _They were going to call on Irene Moriare, the widowed mother of Dan and Cliff. It was to be a casual interview, such as Irene had come to be accustomed to between her late husband and her sons. The main purpose was apparently just to check up on the two young men and make sure they were still clean. Hardy and Johnson, however, wanted to make it look like they were tipping their hand by having Carson along. If Dan or Joy should happen to be nearby, they would recognize him and their next move might perhaps not be so well-advised. It was a risky plan that had a large chance of not succeeding, but they had determined that it was worth a try._

 _The building was run-down, and the people whom Carson and Johnson passed in the halls cast them suspicious looks. They finally came to the apartment they were looking for, and Johnson rang the bell. It took a few minutes for the door to finally open, revealing a girl of about fourteen years with very wide, wondering eyes._

 _"I'm Sergeant Mitchell Johnson of the NYPD." Johnson took out his badge and showed it to the girl. "This is Carson Drew. Is this the home of Irene Moriare?"_

 _The girl looked at the badge and then up at the faces of the two men. "Yes. She's my mother. But she's not at home right now. She's at work."_

 _"Where does she work?" Johnson asked._

 _"At Five and Twenty, the department store," the girl replied._

 _"Which one?" Johnson put his badge back into an inner pocket. "There are three or four in town."_

 _"I don't remember the street," the girl admitted. "Grant? It's a president."_

 _"Cleveland," Johnson said. "All right. Thank you. What time does your mother get off work?"_

 _"I don't know," the girl told him. "It changes every day." She looked up at him almost beseechingly with her large, brown eyes. "Is this – is this about my brothers again?"_

 _"Yes, it is," Carson replied. "We're afraid they've gotten themselves into some very big trouble this time. Are they –" He stopped when he felt Johnson step on his foot, realizing that the officer didn't want so much to be revealed._

 _"Thank you very much again," Johnson said to the girl. "What is your name?"_

 _"Evangeline," the girl replied and closed the door._

 _As Johnson and Carson walked back down the hall, Johnson commented, "There's something about that girl that I don't trust."_

 _"What?" Carson raised an incredulous eyebrow at him. "She's probably barely in high school. What can you suspect her of?"_

 _Johnson shrugged and gave a bit of a laugh. "Hazards of being a police officer, I guess. You start to be suspicious of everybody, especially close relatives of people you suspect of being murderers."_

 _Before Carson could make any kind of a reply to that, he was cut off by a piercing shriek from the floor above. Immediately, Johnson bolted toward the elevator, calling to Carson to follow him. They found a crowd gathered at the door of one of the apartments._

 _"Police. Let us through." Johnson began pushing through the crowd until he got through the door, Carson following close behind._

 _A dazed-looking woman was sitting on the floor of the main living room which the door opened into. She was shaking and crying and seemed utterly incoherent._

 _"Ma'am? I'm Sergeant Mitchell Johnson of the NYPD." Johnson crouched down next to her and tried to get her to look at him, but she wouldn't take her face from her hands. "What happened, ma'am?"_

 _Prudently, Carson closed the door, blocking the gathered crowd out. "Do you want me to call Hardy?"_

 _Johnson shook his head. "Not until we know what's going on here. This could be a ploy to distract us."_

 _"Distract you!" the woman burst out in a shuddering voice. "He's – in the bathroom."_

 _Carson and Johnson glanced at each other, and then followed the woman's pointing finger toward a partially closed door. Cautiously, Johnson swung it open. The bathroom was small and tastefully decorated, but that was not what attracted the attention of the two observers. What caught their attention was a man, fully dressed, lying face-down in the filled bathtub – or rather, the body of a man. Otherwise, the bathroom was in perfect order, except for five seeds that were lined up on the sink._

Present Day

"Mr. Drew!" Bess's panicked voice and her pounding on the door woke Carson from his half-sleeping state. He checked his phone's screen which showed that it was about two-thirty in the morning.

"Mr. Drew!" Bess repeated her cry. "Mr. Drew! Nancy's gone!"


	12. Chapter 12

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and following. Thank you especially to everyone who was left reviews on the last chapter: max2013, Tinee Dancer (for your reviews on the last two chapters), Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, and BMSH. I appreciate you taking the time to tell me what you think. I also love it when you make guesses about the mystery. The only problem is when you make a guess that gets me super excited and I have a hard time not giving everything away!_

Chapter XII

Nancy caught her breath and tried not to show any fear as she met the eyes of the masked man standing before her in the flickering candlelight. He held his arrow loosely on the bowstring, but Nancy didn't doubt that he could quickly pull it tight.

"So we have a thief here, do we?" The man raised an inquiring eyebrow.

"You're one to talk," Nancy replied. "Though, for the record, I had no intention of stealing anything. I suppose this money is yours?"

"It's in my keeping, for the moment," the man said. "If you're not here to steal, why are you here?"

"That's not easy to explain." Nancy debated with herself what to say. To give herself more time, she added, "My name is Nancy Drew."

The man lowered the bow. "That changes things. Then you're here about your friend."

"What do you know about her?" Nancy demanded.

"I know where she is." The man looked hard at her. "I'll take you to her – but we'll be walking into a trap."

Nancy shook her head in disbelief. "This is all a game to you, isn't it? You're just trying to prove to me that you can outsmart me. Who are you?"

Some expression passed over the man's face, but with a mask covering half of it, it was hard to tell what that expression was. "Not who you apparently think I am. I'm not the one who set this trap. I'm the fool who's going to be walking into it with you."

"You mean, you're not the one who kidnapped George?" Nancy stared at him, trying to decide if he was telling the truth. "But you still know where she is?"

"Right," the man agreed. "I also know a little bit about the people who are after you and what they want, but I can tell you on the way."

"On the way where?" Nancy asked.

"To rescue your friend, of course," the man said. "As I said, it's a trap and they know we're coming, but it's the only way. They made sure to tell me that."

Nancy took a few moments, trying to process all of this. Finally, she asked again, "Who are you? Take off that mask and let me see your face."

"I can't do that," the man explained, sounding almost apologetic. "I'm not in league with these people, but I do have some secrets of my own. Besides, you're a detective, so I hear. That means you're literally the last person I should tell who I am. For now, you can call me Robin."

"And you expect me to just trust you and go wherever you say with you?" Nancy asked. "That doesn't sound like a very good idea."

"No, I suppose not," Robin admitted. "Perhaps I should explain it more. I am a thief, but not for personal gain. You may not realize this, Nancy, since you're not from here, but many of the people living in Baker are very poor. There aren't many good jobs available, property taxes are high. All the apartments in town are owned by one person, and having the monopoly, he charges exorbitant rents."

"So you steal from these people so you can give it back to them," Nancy concluded.

"No." Robin sounded taken aback. "No. No, no. I don't steal from the people I'm trying to help."

"You steal from charities and that's the same thing," Nancy replied.

"It's nothing like the same thing," Robin argued. "Do you know how much of the money you donate to a charity actually goes to whatever cause you donated it for? A lot of it goes to paying employees, paying for office space, paying for office supplies, paying for postage, paying for these ridiculous high-class dinners for rich people to go to and they don't even invite the people they're claiming to help."

"All right, I won't excuse them for that," Nancy admitted. "Although, to a certain extent, it does make sense. Without several of those things, they won't be able to bring in as much money as they can with them. But, yes, you're right that there are charities that carry it much too far. Even so, you can't just steal money."

"Every penny I take goes to the very people it was supposed to go to in the first place," Robin insisted. "Even if I am a thief, I'm not really stealing it. If anything, I'm keeping it safe from people who would steal it."

"Well, that's all wonderful, but no one knows that that's what you're actually doing with it," Nancy said.

"Don't they? I thought my disguise made it rather clear," Robin replied.

"I've seen thieves dress up as any number of things, but that doesn't mean that that's what they were," Nancy told him. "So you take money that was meant for the poor and you give it to the poor. What about the money and jewelry you've stolen out of the pockets of the patrons at these charity events? What if they didn't mean to donate it?"

"They ought to share their good fortune with those who have none," Robin said. "Tossing a few hundred into a charity's collection is nothing when you have a few thousand in your wallet."

Nancy shook her head. "But it's their money. It would be wonderful if they shared it all with people who have less, but it's not right to force them to do so."

"We haven't time to argue all of this." Robin changed the subject abruptly. "We need to go find your friend."

"How do you know where she is?" Nancy hesitated before making a move to follow him.

"I've seen her," Robin explained. "If it's any help, they told me to tell you that I'm the Green Knight. I don't know what it means, other than that I suppose it's a reference to my costume."

Nancy caught her breath. The Green Knight was the second knight that Sir Gareth had had to fight. This had to be the next part of the game that someone was playing with her. In that case, she had no choice what her own next move would be.

"All right," she said. "I guess I'll just have to go with you."

Robin blew out the candle, and Nancy felt a bit nervous in the pitch dark. She realized she was putting herself in a foolish position, and she was tempted to try to make a break for it after all. However, she heard Robin heading for the backdoor first, and so she cautiously followed him. Before she left the building, though, she took out her phone and sent a text to Ned, wishing she had asked him to come along with her.

"We'll take your car," Robin said. "You drive."

Nancy considered it for a moment. "No. We'll each take our own car. I'll follow you."

"Can't," Robin replied. "I don't drive my car when I'm out at night. Makes it too easy to identify me."

"Okay. That makes sense," Nancy admitted. "But you drive. You know the way, anyhow."

NDNDNDNDND

Nancy tried not to look tense during the drive that followed. Every moment, she was feeling more and more keenly that she had done something incredibly stupid. Robin was taking her out into the country around Baker, and Nancy knew that that meant if anything went wrong, she was completely on her own with no place to go if she couldn't keep using the car.

"Where are we going?" she asked finally.

"They're keeping your friend at the old castle," Robin replied.

"The old castle?" Nancy repeated, incredulous. "What castle?"

"Oh, I thought you might have known about it, being a detective and all," Robin said. "It was built by some rich guy from Chicago as a sort of private getaway fifty years ago. He didn't use it very long, although it still belongs to his family. Now it's basically just deserted."

"I would think that would be a terrible place to keep a prisoner," Nancy replied pointedly. "There must be people going over there to look around all the time."

Robin shrugged. "There's a wall around the grounds that you need a ladder to get over, unless you have a key to get through the front gate. That keeps all the less determined people out. Then, of course, there are the ghosts."

"The ghosts?" Nancy did not sound impressed.

"Rumor has it that this rich guy who built the place cut corners on the building materials," Robin told her. "That's part of why he didn't use the place much, because the castle just simply isn't any good. But the main reason is that a section of a wall collapsed while the castle was being built, burying several of the workmen alive. Now their vengeful spirits wander the empty hallways, seeking to bring the same fate that befell them upon the millionaire and all his family."

"You don't really believe that?" Nancy asked.

"I tend to keep an open mind about ghosts and all that," Robin replied. "In this case, though, it's just a rumor. I've been to that castle, and there aren't any vengeful spirits haunting it. There are just some very much so alive people haunting it."

"And why exactly were you there?" Nancy continued. "You'll excuse me if I don't quite trust you and find it more than a little suspicious that you were able to just walk right in to this place, talk to George, and walk right back out."

"That would be suspicious," Robin admitted. "That's not how it happened, though. These people have some odd ideas about what I do and why I do it. They misrepresented what they wanted, though, so when they invited me there to talk about it, I went. I ran into George and pretty quickly figured out what they wanted. When I told them, I wouldn't help them, they told me that I had no choice. I was the Green Knight now, they told me, and if I didn't play along, they'd kill George. I didn't have a whole lot of choice."

"You certainly don't seem to have any qualms about dragging me into what you know to be a trap," Nancy observed.

"You knew it was a trap all along, too," Robin reminded her. "You already knew what you were getting into. I have a feeling, though, that they don't just want us to be chess pieces. I think they want us to be their chess opponent."

"Who are they?" Nancy asked.

Robin took a deep breath before answering. "It's against my honor to lie, so I will have to hope that you'll be satisfied when I tell you that I can't tell you. There's a woman, though. I know that much. There's something odd about her, but I can't quite put my finger on it."

"You can't tell me or you won't tell me?" Nancy inquired. "You know, refusing to tell me everything you know isn't helping me trust you."

"I know," Robin admitted. "It's just – It's a bit difficult to explain why I can't tell you without giving away what I don't want you to know. But never mind that now. We're here."

He slowed the car to a stop as its headlights illuminated the gates of a fourteen-foot stone wall. Beyond, Nancy could just barely make out the towers and the heavy wooden doors of the castle.

Robin got out of the car and pushed the wrought-iron gates open without effort and then drove the car through. Nancy asked him why the gates had been unlocked.

Robin gave a wry chuckle. "It doesn't do any good to set a trap but not let the mice get into it."

He parked the car in front of the castle. They went to the front door, but before either of them touched it, it swung open on its own.


	13. Chapter 13

_Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and following this story! Thank you especially to max2013, Cherylann Rivers, BMSH, and Evergreen Dreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter! I appreciate really appreciate your support!_

 _I have a very busy weekend ahead of me, so I won't be updating until Sunday or Monday. It's not super late, but I thought I'd give you a heads up anyway._

Chapter XIII

Robin fitted an arrow to the string of his bow as he and Nancy entered the old castle. It was fitted out with electric lights, which were turned on. Nancy looked around the grand entry hall, which was huge but utterly devoid of any decoration or furniture whatsoever. No one was in sight.

"Okay," Nancy said finally. "They're obviously expecting us, even if they didn't plan to meet us at the front door. What do we do? Just go and find George and see what happens?"

"I guess that's all we can do," Robin agreed. "Come on. I'll show you the way."

He led her to one of the doorways that led out of the hall and plunged right through it. Nancy, however, stopped short in front of it, noticing that something had been engraved into the stone above it.

"What are you waiting for?" Robin turned around when he noticed that she wasn't following him.

"We need to be careful," Nancy told him. "Someone's engraved the words 'The Puce Knight' over the doorway."

"So?" Robin asked. "What does that mean?"

"This whole thing is based off the story of Sir Gareth," Nancy explained. "When he was on his quest to rescue the kidnapped Lyonesse, he had to fight four knights – the Black Knight, the Green Knight, the Red Knight or the Puce Knight, as he is sometimes called, and the Indigo Knight. Then finally he had to fight the Red Knight of the Red Lawns."

"Oh," Robin said. "I get it. That old suit of armor was the Black Knight, I'm the Green Knight, and now the Puce Knight. It doesn't necessarily mean anything bad, though, right? I mean, it's not like you had to actually fight that hunk of iron or me, for that matter."

"True," Nancy agreed, although not without reservation in her voice. "They could just be using the colored knights as signposts, of sorts. Even so, I'm not going to take anything for granted here."

"Good idea," Robin replied. "Let's go, but carefully."

Nancy followed him as they crept through the hallways. Apart from the front hall, none of the lights seemed to be on, and so Nancy turned on her phone's flashlight to show the way. There were several twists and turns, as if the castle had been intentionally designed to be a maze. Although Robin said nothing about being unsure of the way, there were several times when he stopped and seemed to be trying to remember it.

As this continued on, Nancy couldn't help but think of how ridiculous the situation was. Here she was, in the middle of the night, creeping around a dark maze of a castle with a man whose name she didn't know and whose face she had never seen and who was dressed in a full Robin Hood costume, carrying around a bow and arrow that he seemed to intend to use as an actual weapon and not just a prop, half-expecting to be ambushed at any second by a knight in armor, and both of them knowing perfectly well that they had walked right into a trap. Nancy had had some strange adventures, but surely this was one of the strangest.

Nancy glanced at her phone's screen, wondering if Ned had replied to her text yet. He hadn't but that didn't necessarily mean that he hadn't seen it, as Nancy now noticed that she had no cell reception here.

"Nancy," Robin said finally. "I'm sorry, but this place is a maze. I'm lost."

"I thought you knew the way," Nancy replied. "You said you talked to George here."

"I did," Robin insisted. "It was just last night, too. I thought I could find my way, but there are just too many turns."

Nancy sighed. "Okay. It's all right. We can figure this out." She looked around her, trying to think of a way to keep the directions straight. There didn't seem to be one.

NDNDNDNDND

"What happened?" Carson demanded, looking from Ned to Bess to the other boys. "Didn't Nancy say anything about where she was going?"

Bess shook her head. "I didn't even notice until Ned started knocking on the door and asked if she was in our room. I woke up and her bed was empty."

"How did you know she was gone, Ned?" Carson asked.

"I got a text from her," Ned explained. "She said she's doing some investigating and it might be dangerous and to be ready to come help her if she asked for it. I've tried to call her and text her several times, but she won't answer."

"She left a note on the table in our room," Bess added. "It just said she'd be back in half an hour."

"This is just great," Dave said. "First, George, and now Nancy's gone. What could have happened to her?"

Carson was trying hard to stay calm, recalling all the other times Nancy had gone off to investigate without telling anyone exactly where. She had always come back before. "Maybe nothing. I'm sure she's fine. And I'm sure she didn't go too far. She doesn't even have her car here, and I have the keys to mine."

"But she does have the set of spare keys to mine," Ned told him. "There's been so many times that she's had to borrow my car, that I just gave her a set."

The news did little to comfort Carson, but he put the best face he could on it. "Okay. Let's go see if the car's still here. If it isn't, she wouldn't have left town. Not in the middle of the night with the roads the way they are. We can drive around in my car and probably find her in no time."

"You three should stay here, in case she comes back," Ned told Burt, Dave, and Bess.

With that, he and Carson hurried down to the parking lot of the hotel. Each felt his heart sink a little at seeing the spot where Ned's car had been parked empty. With one accord, they dashed to Carson's car and climbed in.

"Where do we look first?" Ned asked.

Carson shook his head as he turned the key in the ignition. "I don't know. Maybe that restaurant with the suit of armor. I have no idea where else she might think to look."

"Or she might have thought of something that we missed at the church where George disappeared," Ned suggested. "We should check out those two places first."

They were both too preoccupied to say much more as they went first to the restaurant and then to the church. Ned's car was nowhere in the vicinity of either, and there was no other sign of Nancy. With those two possibilities leading nowhere, Carson and Ned sat in the car, lost in desperate worry.

"Where else could have she gone?" Ned asked finally.

Carson didn't reply, as he was trying to think through what clue Nancy could have found. There was something that had stood out to her, and he felt he ought to be able to figure out just what it was.

"I guess I should be used to this," Ned said after a while. "It's not like this is the first time Nancy's done something like this. But you know that even better than I do."

Carson nodded slowly. "How much has she told you about this case?"

"Not everything," Ned admitted. "She said there was some background that she'd fill all of us in on later. She did say it had something to do with the Hardys. What's their connection to all of this?"

Leaning an elbow against the steering wheel, Carson put a hand to his forehead. He did not want to have to tell this story again so soon. There wasn't time, anyway. Ned would have to be content with the short version for now. "There was a case, years ago – shortly after I finished law school. Fenton Hardy and I both worked on it. It was a murder case, involving multiple murders based off a couple of Sherlock Holmes stories. The outcome – wasn't great for anyone involved in it. One of the men responsible for it just got out of prison a few months ago."

"And you think he's out for revenge?" Ned had no difficulty in filling in the blanks. "And he's going to get it by going after Nancy?"

"And Frank and Joe, too," Carson replied. "They had a close call back in September."

"They've been helping Nancy dig up some information," Ned told him. "Maybe – I don't know. They might somehow have some idea where she went."

Carson considered the possibility for a few moments before saying, "It's a long shot, but it's worth a try. Do you have either of their numbers?"

"Yeah." Ned dug his phone out of his pocket and opened up the contact list. For a moment, he contemplated which one to call, and then decided on Joe.

The phone only rang once before Joe answered, sounding a little uncertain at getting a call from Ned in the middle of the night.

"Hey, Joe, have you talked to Nancy recently?" Ned asked.

"A couple of days ago," Joe told him. "Why? What's up?"

"It's just that Nancy went off by herself and we don't know where," Ned replied. "We thought there might be a chance she would have talked about it with you and Frank. I guess we were wrong. Sorry to have woken you up."

"You didn't," Joe said dryly. "But if Nancy's missing, and she said something about getting a book and a weird note in the mail – Oh, man."

"What?" Ned asked. "Do you know something about what's going on?"

"This sounds like them again," Joe replied unhelpfully. "But why would they be bothering Nancy?"

"What are you talking about?" Ned gripped his phone a little tighter.

"Shanth." Joe sounded like it was an effort to say the name. "How would he even know about Nancy?"

"We already know about him," Ned said in some confusion. "In fact, since he's pretty much the main suspect, I thought Nancy had you guys track down what information you could on him."

"She had us do what?" Joe asked.

"Well, Frank called earlier and told Nancy what he knows about where the Shanths came from and all of that," Ned explained. "I guess I just assumed you were looking into it, too."

"Yeah," Joe replied, his voice almost a little sarcastic. "Because Frank and I never do anything apart from each other."

NDNDNDNDND

George shivered as she pulled her arms out of the sleeves of her coat, trying to warm them as much as possible. She was cold and tired, even after having been given several blankets and a hot supper. More than that, she was frustrated at being in the situation where she found herself.

She had seen almost nothing of her captors, except the person who had brought her the blankets and the food. That had told her almost nothing, as the person was dressed in a suit of red armor, complete with a helmet so that she couldn't even tell whether it was a man or a woman. There was only one thing she could tell about this person – he or she must have been completely crazy.


	14. Chapter 14

_Author's Note: Once again, thank you so much to everyone reading and following this story! I would especially like to thank BMSH, max2013, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter._

Chapter XIV

 _Fifteen years earlier_

 _As soon as he had seen the body, Mitchell Johnson had instantly become a no-nonsense police detective, taking everything in hand. The change had surprised Carson a bit, since Johnson had seemed such an easy-going sort of person before that. More than that, though, stumbling on what was obviously a murder had interrupted their investigation of the Moriare brothers and that frustrated Carson. It hadn't been until hours later when they had finally left the apartment building, and Johnson had offered to give Carson a ride home._

 _"I don't get it," Carson said as they drove toward his apartment. "Couldn't you have had someone else investigate that? We wasted the whole afternoon."_

 _"I don't think so," Johnson replied. "Besides, Fenton radioed in that he had picked up the Moriare brothers' trail and was following them. He's bound to have found out something."_

 _"But aren't we supposed to be working on that case, too?" Carson asked. "Why spend so much time on this other case?"_

 _"Because the minute I saw that bathroom, I knew this was the handiwork of the same murderer," Johnson told him. "The scene screamed Sherlock Holmes. Not so much as the other one, sure, but it was pretty much unmistakable all the same."_

 _Carson looked over at him from the passenger seat in bewilderment. "What's so Holmes-ish about a guy drowned in a bathtub?"_

 _"Nothing – it would be much more Holmes-ish for it to have been a pool." Johnson smirked a little. "This case – oh, boy. It's like a dream. I mean, the murders are awful and all, but this is why I first wanted to be a cop. I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie and Father Brown and all the rest. To be actually solving a series of crimes based on Sherlock Holmes stories –"_

 _"Okay." Carson wasn't sure whether to be amused or a little alarmed at the officer's enthusiasm. "But what was it that made this so obviously Holmes?"_

 _"The seeds," Johnson said. "Didn't you see the seeds?"_

 _"Yeah," Carson said slowly. "There were some seeds on the sink. What about it?"_

 _"They were orange seeds." Johnson said it like he was making a grand revelation. "And there were five of them. And the guy had been drowned." When Carson merely stared at him blankly, he went on, "It's what happened in one of the stories – 'The Five Orange Pips.' In it, the KKK murders three guys, but before they do, they send them each five orange seeds in the mail. The first guy to get murdered is found drowned in a pool in his garden."_

 _"Wait. You're not saying we're dealing with the KKK and the Irish Mob, are you?" Carson asked, alarm in his voice._

 _"Hmm." Johnson mused over the possibility. "That would be something. But I doubt it. It seems to be pretty solidly a mob connection. I don't know if you caught the name of the guy who got killed, but he was Kyle Norris. At one time, he was practically Devin Matthias' right-hand man. He got replaced later by another guy, so we think. Brian Donahue."_

 _"So the Moriare theory still holds up," Carson observed. "At least, it does if Norris had anything to do with Randy Moriare's murder."_

 _"He may or may not," Johnson admitted. "He hasn't been so thick with Matthias for ten years, as far as we know. Even so, we don't think they severed their connection altogether."_

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _When they arrived at the Drews' apartment, Carson invited Johnson to come up and have supper with his family. Johnson, being a bachelor and not much of a cook, gratefully accepted. However, it wasn't Kate who greeted them at the door. Instead, it was Carson's sister Eloise._

 _"I'm certainly getting a lot of time in with Nancy these days," Eloise teased Carson, "what with you and Kate always needing a babysitter. I'm not complaining, though. Once you move back to River Heights, I won't get to see much of Nancy at all."_

 _"Where is Kate, anyway?" Carson asked her. "She didn't have to work today."_

 _"She said she had some errands to run," Eloise replied. "Apparently, she had a bit of a long list, and she thought she could get through it faster if she left Nancy at home. Oh, there was a phone message for you. A Lieutenant Hardy wanted you and Sergeant Johnson to meet him at his house. He said that even if he wasn't there, his wife could explain."_

 _"Well, I guess it's a good thing you talked me into coming up here for dinner, even if I'm not going to get any now," Johnson said as he and Carson headed back down to his car._

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _The Hardys lived in a comfortably-sized duplex that even had a little bit of a front lawn. Carson and Johnson were ushered inside by a woman who introduced herself to Carson as Laura Hardy. They were no sooner inside the door than a blond two-year-old boy came toddling toward them as fast as he could, saying, "Uncle Mish! Uncle Mish!"_

 _He was followed a few seconds later by a second boy who was about a year older with dark hair. The two boys each grabbed hold of one of Johnson's legs and hung on giggling as he took a few steps around the room._

 _"You two are getting too heavy for this," he jokingly complained, pretending to have a harder time walking than he really was._

 _Carson watched the scene with a grin until Laura went to collect her two sons. "Come here, Joe. Let go, Frank. Stop bothering Uncle Mitch."_

 _"It's no bother," Johnson assured her as the two boys unwillingly allowed themselves to be peeled off him._

 _"I'm sure not," Laura said distractedly. "They should have better manners than all of that, though."_

 _"We got your husband's message to meet him here," Carson told her, feeling that she wanted to get down to the business at hand._

 _"Yes," Laura replied. "He should be here any minute. You see, there's someone watching the apartment."_

 _Johnson at once went to the window and peered through the blinds. "Is it that silver Ford?"_

 _"Mm-hmm." Laura nodded. "They've been parked there for hours and there's always two men in it."_

 _"Shouldn't we go talk to them?" Carson asked._

 _"Not until we know a little better what's going on," Johnson replied. "Can I use your phone, Laura? I'm going to check on that license number."_

 _As he was dialing the number, Carson pulled the blinds a few inches to the side so that he could see out. A silver four-door Ford stood across the street and a little way up. Carson could see two men sitting in the front seat, but it was too far away to see anything of their features. While he watched, another car pulled up in front of the Hardy apartment and Fenton Hardy got out of it. Johnson was just hanging up the phone when Hardy came in the door._

 _"Are you all right, Laura?" Hardy greeted his wife who came to embrace him amidst ecstatic shrieks of "Daddy! Daddy!" from the two toddlers._

 _"I'm all right," Laura assured him. "A little scared, I'll admit, though."_

 _"Fenton," Johnson said, "I checked on the license number of that car."_

 _Something in his tone made everyone else feel apprehensive. Even Frank and Joe settled down and seemed to be wondering what the grown-ups were worried about._

 _"Does it belong to either of the Moriares?" Hardy asked._

 _Johnson shook his head. "No. I guess they're clever enough to realize that it wouldn't be such a great idea to use their own car to spy on a cop. Besides, if my suspicions are right, they were too busy a couple hours ago."_

 _"Then whose is it?" Carson was growing impatient in waiting for Johnson's revelation._

 _"It's registered to Jack Garnier," Johnson replied._

 _Hardy put a hand to his forehead with a groan. "That's just great."_

 _Carson shook his head in confusion. "I must be missing something. Who is Jack Garnier?"_

 _Hardy and Johnson exchanged glances. "He's an enforcer for the local mob family," Johnson explained. "At least, pretty well everyone in law enforcement around here know that he is, although we can't prove anything."_

 _Carson whistled. "What are we going to do about it?"_

 _Before either Hardy or Johnson could answer, the doorbell rang. All four adults froze, but then the two police officers hurried forward. Johnson looked through the window to the right of the door and nodded at Hardy._

 _"Laura, take the boys into the back bedroom," Hardy said. "Carson, you might want to get out of sight, too."_

 _As Laura hustled her sons out of the room, Carson contented himself to remain behind the half-wall dividing the living room and the dining room. Johnson stood to one side of the door with his gun drawn, while Hardy slowly opened the door._

 _"Lieutenant Hardy?" The man's voice came from the other side of the door. "I think you already know who I am."_

 _"What do you want, Garnier?" Hardy asked._

 _Garnier held his hands away from his body. "I'm not armed. I left it in the car."_

 _"With your friend?" Hardy added._

 _"Right," Garnier replied. "Just some insurance. I want to make a deal with you."_

 _Hardy and Johnson glanced at each other, and then Hardy asked, "What kind of a deal?"_

 _"I'll hand you Devin Matthias's successor," Garnier said._

 _"And what do you want in return?" Hardy continued._

 _"Protection," Garnier told him. "I happen to know that there's someone gunning for me. I don't even care so much if you put me in prison, as long as you keep me away from these people."_

 _"What people?" Hardy asked._

 _Instead of replying, he handed the detective an envelope. Hardy glanced at what was inside, and then opened the door and let Garnier in. As soon as he was inside, Hardy handed the envelope to Johnson. Carson stepped forward now, and Johnson showed him the contents of the envelope – five orange seeds._

 _"All right," Hardy said. "Say what you have to say."_

 _"Since Matthias bought it, there's been some turmoil among his followers." Garnier seemed nervous as he looked at each of the three men in turn. "Norris was one of the most likely to get Matthias's position, but I hear he got it just this afternoon. Now it's just between Brian Donahue and Earl O'Riley. If you can bag those two, it'll all fall apart."_

 _"Can you prove a connection between Donahue and O'Riley and the mob?" Carson asked._

 _"Who're you?" Garnier demanded. "Never mind. I've got the evidence, all right. You've just got to keep me away from these people who're knocking everybody off."_

 _"Do you know who they are?" Hardy asked him._

 _"Yeah. You remember the Moriare murder case a few years back?" When Hardy nodded, Garnier continued, "That was the mob's doing. Matthias ordered it. Moriare's kids are crazy. They're not going to stop until everyone who had anything to do with it is dead."_

 _"And what did you have to do with it?" Hardy inquired._

 _Garnier's eyes shifted nervously. "The Moriare kids don't think about that. It doesn't matter. All I know is I'm next."_

 _"And how do you know that?" Hardy asked._

 _"Those seeds." Garnier pointed at the envelope. "Norris got an envelope just like that right before they bumped him off."_

 _Just then, the phone began to ring. Hardy looked at it, but he hesitated before he picked it up. After he had listened to the person for a few minutes, he handed the phone to Carson, saying, "It's for you. It's your wife."_

 _"Kate?" Carson said into the phone. "What is it? How did you know I was here?"_

 _"Eloise told me," Kate replied, her voice sheepish. "Carson, don't kill me, but I've gotten myself into some trouble."_

Present day

"Well? Do the Hardys know anything?" Carson asked Ned, who had just hung up from his call.

"Not a thing," Ned replied. "Joe acted like he didn't know anything at all, and Frank said he hasn't talked to Nancy since earlier today and she didn't say anything then."

Carson looked out into the darkness, wondering where in it his daughter was.


	15. Chapter 15

_Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and following this story. I would especially like to thank everyone who left reviews on the last chapter: EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers (and for your review on Chapter 14, too!), max2013, and BMSH. It's so encouraging to me as a writer when you leave reviews and it really helps to motivate me to keep writing. Future stories, that is – I have every intention of finishing this one with or without reviews. But anyway, thank you so much for taking the time to tell me what you think!_

Chapter XV

"This isn't doing any good," Robin grumbled. "We'll never find our way through this maze, or out of it for that matter."

"It's a challenge," Nancy told him. "That must be why this picked it. First, there was the challenge of finding the Black Knight's secret, then there was the challenge of whether to trust you, the Green Knight, or not, and now getting through this maze must be the Puce Knight's challenge."

"Very clever," Robin replied sarcastically. "But it doesn't help us find our way."

"Maybe not in itself, but it does show that there must be a way to figure it out." Nancy looked around at the stone walls, shining her phone's flashlight around at them. There was nothing – no furniture, no wall decorations, no markings on the walls themselves.

Nancy swept the light around again. It was then that she realized that the walls were not so blank as they appeared. Something glinted on the wall a few feet down one of the corridors. She hurried forward to look at it, grinning when she saw what it was – a vein of some blue mineral in the stone.

"Come on." She waved for Robin to follow her. "I think I've got it."

"What makes you think that?" Robin objected.

Nancy explained what she had found. "Maybe we're supposed to go down the corridors that have stones with this mineral in them. It could be the Indigo Knight."

Robin scoffed. "That's pretty far-fetched. What kind of person would have a clue like that?"

"Probably the same kind that would set up elaborate crimes based on books," Nancy replied. As they began walking down the hallway, she added, "Speaking of basing crimes off books, it seems just a little odd to me that you are modeling yourself so heavily off Robin Hood."

"You don't still think I'm involved, do you?" Robin asked. "I already explained what I've been doing."

"If you can call it that," Nancy said. "Why don't you take off the mask and let me see who you really are?"

"Can you give me your word that you won't turn me over to the police?" Robin spoke seriously, but as if he already knew the answer.

Nancy sighed. "I can't."

"Then I can't let you know my true identity," Robin replied.

For more than twenty minutes, they continued on their way. Each time the corridor split into two or three, they found one and only one that had streaks of the indigo mineral in the stones. Finally, they came to a wooden door. Nancy tried it and found that it was unlocked. She pushed it open to reveal a dungeon.

As soon as she heard the door open, George peered out of one of the cells. "Nancy!"

"George!" Nancy sighed in relief and hurried toward her. "Are you all right? What happened?"

George grinned wryly. "I was being dumb, I guess. How did you find me?" Right then, she noticed Robin. "Oh. So he really did find you and bring you here. Honestly, I didn't think he was going to."

"Well, at least the two of you won't have a disagreement over whether or not you can trust me," Robin said sarcastically.

"Never mind that now," Nancy told them. "I'm still convinced that this was meant to be a trap, and it hasn't been sprung yet. I'd rather make as much of an attempt as we can to get out before it is sprung."

"Right," Robin agreed. "Besides, if your whole colored knights theory holds up, there should be one more to get past."

"I'd love to get out of here, too." George grabbed one of the iron bars making the prison and tried to shake it. "The problem is, this door is locked and that Looney Toons guy in the red armor has the key."

"Well, there's our last knight from the sound of it," Robin said in a forcedly cheerful voice. "Didn't you even say the last one is supposed to be red?"

"What's he talking about?" George asked Nancy.

"I'll tell you about it later." Nancy crouched down to look at the lock. It wasn't complicated, and Nancy had it picked in a few moments.

Robin whistled as George stepped out of the cell. "Are you sure I'm the thief here and not you, Nancy? I guess that explains how you got into Jim's."

"It's a useful skill to have my line of work," Nancy told him, "but we can talk about it later. Let's get out of here."

They turned to go back the way Nancy and Robin had come, but they found that the doorway was blocked by a tall man with broad shoulders. He wasn't wearing armor, which allowed Nancy to recognize his face.

"Dan Moriare," she said.

The man nodded. "Nancy Drew, I presume? Otherwise known as _her_ latest obsession."

In a fluid, well-practiced movement, Robin drew an arrow out of his quiver and fitted it to the string of his bow. "You had better let us pass. I won't hesitate to shoot. If you wanted to stop us, you should have worn your armor."

"And I would have, if I wanted to stop you," Moriare replied. "There's someone else on the way here to stop you. The Red Knight, as he insists on calling himself. I managed to hold him up, but we don't have all night."

"Wait. You're helping us?" Nancy asked. "Why?"

"I did my time," Moriare told her. "I'm not doing any more. Not for her. She already got my brother killed and made me spend the last fifteen years in the pen. No more."

"Who are you talking about?" Nancy's heart thumped faster as she felt that she was about to uncover the solution to the whole mystery.

Just then, they heard the sound of heavy, metallic footsteps behind Moriare. He glanced over his shoulder and then pointed to the opposite side of the room where there was another door.

"There's another way out. I'll show you," he said, running toward it.

Nancy and her companions looked at each other in bewilderment at this development, but only for a moment. Without having to say a word to each other, they all agreed to risk following Moriare than wait to face whoever was coming.

The passageway that Moriare showed them was a great deal shorter and went up a flight of stairs. It led to a door that was connected to the outside of the castle. Nancy could see Ned's car parked not twenty-five feet away.

"Hurry!" Moriare urged them. "They mustn't catch you with me."

Robin and George, still bewildered, but eager to take the chance that was offered them, plunged on ahead. Nancy held back.

"You should come with us," she said. "Since you've helped us escape and if you turned over evidence about the others, I'm sure you could get a lighter sentence."

"I don't want any sentence at all." Moriare swung the door closed, leaving Nancy out in the dark and the cold.

As Nancy was still staring at the closed door in bewilderment, she heard George call, "Come on, Nancy! We need to get out of here!"

Reluctantly, Nancy followed George and Robin to the car and they all got in. As they drove away as quickly as they dared – with Nancy at the wheel this time, since she had insisted that Robin give the keys to her – George and Robin both looked out the back and Nancy continually checked the rearview mirror for any sign of pursuit. When none seemed to be coming, George flopped back in her seat in relief.

"You know," she said, "I've had some pretty weird stuff happen to me, being friends with Nancy. But this has got to be the weirdest. I mean, seriously. Getting kidnapped by a dude in armor and locked up in a dungeon and then getting rescued by Robin Hood is pretty weird."

"I'm just glad that guy let us go," Robin added. "Why would he do that?"

He looked at George, but she just shrugged. "I have no idea about anything. I suspect Nancy might, though."

"I - I don't know, either," Nancy replied, still trying to process everything that had just happened. "It could be part of their game, I guess. They seem to like doing things that make absolutely no sense. Which this doesn't, because I thought their whole plan was to use George as bait so they could capture me and get revenge on my dad." She sighed. "I don't know."

The sun was just rising over the eastern horizon when Nancy reached the town of Baker. There was a lot on her mind right now. There was relief, of course, at finding George and all of them escaping unharmed. Even so, she couldn't help the uneasy feeling that someone – probably Dan Moriare, from the look of things – was playing with her, like a cat with a mouse, letting her think she might escape but all the while having her in their claws. She shuddered. She didn't like feeling helpless and uncertain.

Then, in addition to that, there was the problem of what to do about Robin. Nancy hadn't fully trusted him until now. It was all over, and he hadn't done anything to endanger them or to help Moriare. In fact, he had even drawn a weapon on Moriare and had been prepared to defend them. More than that, Nancy knew she wouldn't have found George so easily – and possibly not at all – if it hadn't been for Robin. She owed him a debt; there was no doubt about that. But he was a thief, and Nancy was a detective.

Robin had evidently been wondering things along the same lines. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and cleared his throat. "Now that our adventure is over, uh, would it be the same to you if I went on my way?"

Nancy bit her lip, trying to decide. After another moment's deliberation, she pulled over to the side of the street. "I owe you one, Robin. I'll let you go this time. But don't make me regret it."

"I don't see how I could," Robin replied. "You won't hear from me again. But thank you, Nancy. And good luck. I hope you'll figure out what's going on a put a stop to it." Without another word, he got out of the car and disappeared into an alleyway.

"Do you think we really won't hear from him again?" George asked, watching him go. "If we don't, I'm probably going to die of curiosity wondering who he is."

Nancy smiled a little. "If you do that, rescuing you would have been a waste of time." She yawned. "I have a feeling that he's the sort who can't go for very long without being heard of, at least, even if he's not heard from. But right now, I'm not going to worry about that. I'm going to go back to the hotel and get a few hours' worth of sleep. I'll think about what I'm going to do next about this crazy case after that."

George also yawned. "You don't happen to have a spare bed in that hotel, do you? 'Cause I could really do with sleeping on a real mattress myself for a change."


	16. Chapter 16

_Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who is reading, following, and reviewing this story. Thank you especially to max2013, Evergreen Dreamweaver, and BMSH for your reviews on the last chapter._

Chapter XVI

"George! Nancy!" Bess practically screamed in excitement when she saw the two girls get out of Ned's car in the motel parking lot. She rushed forward and grabbed them both in a huge hug.

Burt and Dave were right behind her, and they both gave the girls an enthusiastic greeting as well, particularly Burt in greeting George.

"You're all right!" Bess babbled on, hugging George again as soon as she got her away from Burt. "What happened? We were so worried. Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," George told her, perhaps a little gruffly. "I'm just super tired. I don't suppose we could answer questions after a nap?"

"Oh, of course!" Bess led the whole group up to the rooms that they had rented in the motel.

As George went inside one of them, Nancy caught Dave by the arm. "Where are Dad and Ned?"

"Oh!" Dave slapped a hand to his head. "Right. They're out looking for you. We'd better call them."

"I'll do it," Nancy told him. "We also need to call the police. We just might be able to catch the people who kidnapped George, provided they haven't left yet."

NDNDNDNDND

If Nancy had had any hopes of accompanying the police to the castle and witnessing the arrests, her hopes were dashed when her dad returned to the motel. After giving her and Ned a chance to greet one another, Carson took Nancy to one of the rooms where they could talk privately.

"Nancy, what were you thinking?" Carson asked her. "Why would you go off like that without telling anyone?"

"I – Dad, it's a little hard to explain." Nancy uncharacteristically fumbled about with her words. "I mean, I knew you wouldn't want me to go, because I sort of broke into that restaurant. I wanted to get a closer look at that suit of armor."

"Why didn't you tell Ned or Bess, then?" Carson demanded.

"I don't know." Nancy shrugged helplessly and her voice had almost a desperate tone in it. "There's something wrong with this case. There's still something wrong. I guess I knew that Ned or Bess would insist on going with me, and somehow I knew I had to go alone. I can't really explain it."

Carson sighed. "Nancy, I know I don't usually do things like this, but I'm going to have to make you promise not to do anything on this case without talking to me about it first. This time it turned out all right, but next time –"

"I know, Dad. I get it," Nancy admitted. "And it wasn't any of my doing that this time turned out all right. We wouldn't have gotten away if Dan Moriare hadn't helped us."

"What?" Carson stared at her in confused disbelief.

"He was there," Nancy insisted, "and he helped us escape. I don't understand why."

"Leave it to this case." Carson shook his head. "I don't know who's behind this. I thought the first time that it was Cliff Moriare. He seemed clever but bold enough. But he's dead, and whoever is behind it has to be the same person this time. I don't know how, but somehow – this is going to sound crazy, but they can manipulate people, at least enough to throw them off their game."

"Right," Nancy agreed, everything suddenly becoming much clearer, "and I know who's behind it. Well, except that I don't know who it is."

"What are you talking about?" Carson asked.

"It's Lynn Morgan, AKA Helena Markovich," Nancy replied. "I don't know her real name, but it's got to be the same person. She must have used make-up to make herself look different in each role, but don't you see? As Helena Markovich, she steered Frank and Joe right where she wanted them. Fortunately, they were too smart for her, or rather Terry Shanth was too dumb to go along with the plan completely and ruined it all. But why else would have Frank let her escape? Then, as Lynn Morgan, she almost caught me in her trap by convincing me I had to get another look at that armor. Fortunately, this time, she had a traitor in her ranks."

"That makes sense," Carson agreed. "There's just one other question – who is she and what's her connection?"

"That's two questions." Nancy grinned. "We're just going to have to figure that out. Maybe the Hardys will help us there. They've got a stake in this, too, after all."

NDNDNDNDND

Several hours later, the police reported to them the results of their raid on the castle. The place had been deserted, but hastily and not without signs of habitation. These had mainly consisted of tire tracks in the snow, some food left in a refrigerator, and some trash that hadn't been cleaned up. The clues were slim, but they were going to do their best to identify the culprits from them.

Additionally, the police informed them that the castle belonged to Jeremy Kale of Chicago, who had inherited it from his father, Henry Kale. He seldom went there himself and had been trying to sell it for some time now. He insisted that he knew nothing about any criminals staying there.

With so few clues to go on, Nancy and her friends returned to River Heights that afternoon. It wasn't easy for Nancy to make the decision to return without continuing to work on the case, but she had to admit that she was stumped.

One of the first things she did when she got home was to call Frank and explain the most recent turn of events. Frank listened in confused surprise and interest as Nancy told him about her adventure and her deductions about Helena Markovich and Lynn Morgan.

"It could be," Frank agreed when she had finished. "But why is all of this happening? I have a feeling you know more about it than you're saying, Nance."

"I can say completely honestly that I don't know what she has against us," Nancy replied. "I'm starting to think we're not going to find out any time soon. She might disappear for a little while and then turn up again to bother us."

Frank sighed. "I hope not. I don't think I can take too much more of this. I know Joe can't."

"What's up with Joe anyway?" Nancy asked. "He hasn't seemed like himself since – well, since September."

"No, he hasn't," Frank agreed. "I mean, considering everything that happened, it makes sense. And it hasn't even been quite three months yet, so it could be that he just needs time. In the meanwhile, things aren't so easy to deal with around here." He paused for a few moments, and Nancy waited for him to continue rather than trying to fill in the silence herself. "Joe hasn't so much as looked at a sudoku puzzle since then, let alone being willing or interested in working on a case. It's just – kind of rough, I've got to admit. Then on top of all of that, he jumps at every loud noise. Doesn't sleep much. But most of all, he doesn't talk about it."

"Maybe he ought to see a therapist," Nancy suggested.

"You know Joe," Frank replied. "You have to fight him to get him to go to a medical doctor even when it's obvious that he needs one."

"So what about his school and sports and all of that?" Nancy asked. "Is he doing all right there?"

"Yeah. Better than usual, in fact, since he doesn't have any mysteries distract him – or anything else for that matter," Frank told her. "He basically just goes to school, goes to practice, and comes home. He barely even talks to any of his friends. Not even Iola."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Nancy offered.

"I don't know," Frank admitted. "I'm at a loss myself. Mom and Dad have been all weird since then, too. They're constantly looking over their shoulders and always checking up on where Joe and I are. It was starting to get a little better, and then you had to go and start on your case."

"It wasn't exactly my choice," Nancy replied good-naturedly.

NDNDNDNDND

A week passed and then two and nothing more was heard of Lynn Morgan or Dan Moriare or the teenagers whom George had talked to, Dwayne Sventer and Summer Merle. It seemed that Nancy was right and they had once again disappeared. She wished they hadn't. It was unnerving not knowing when or where they would show up again.

True to Robin's word, Nancy didn't hear anything from or about him in those two weeks either. To all appearances, he had given up his thefts, although Nancy wasn't completely sure why. Perhaps he was afraid that she would tell the police everything she knew about him if he attempted another robbery.

The whole thing was strange and Nancy didn't like to consider the case closed. She didn't want to give it up without knowing what was really going on, but what else could she do?

Then, one morning, a little over a week before Christmas, River Heights was buzzing with some exciting but troubling news – Robin Hood had struck in River Heights. He had stolen a chalice from the Catholic church and left only an arrow behind him to show who had done it.

"What do you make of this, Dad?" Nancy asked Carson, pointing out the story in the newspaper. "This isn't his MO. He insisted that he only stole from charities because they don't give every penny they collect to whatever their cause is. Besides this, he's more theatrical than just sneaking in a burglarizing a place."

"Who else could have done it?" Carson asked. "And why?"

"Ugh," Nancy groaned. "Who knows? Two weeks without a word, and then it all starts cropping up again. Like I asked, what do you think it means?"

"You said Robin wasn't in with the Moriare gang," Carson replied. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything, except that he's gone back to stealing."

"I guess that could be," Nancy conceded, but she didn't feel convinced.

NDNDNDNDND

That afternoon, Nancy and Ned went out for a cup of coffee. Throughout their conversation, Nancy was distracted, lost in her own thoughts.

"Is something bothering you?" Ned finally asked.

"Hmm?" Nancy looked up, the question taking just a second longer than normal to sink in. "Oh. Yeah, sort of, I guess. It's just this whole past case and –"

She was interrupted by a text coming in on her phone. She glanced at it and instantly a frown crossed her face.

"What is it?" Ned asked.

In reply, she simply showed him the text. It was from a number that only showed up as "unknown," but it wasn't hard for either Nancy or Ned to figure out who it was from. The message read: "After two weeks, he's right here again. A Robin Hood, his trouble is deep this time. A slippery quest. 'Nd I make it easier this time. You should rea,d chapters of bo,oks 16 and 17 and come at once on this noble quest but you must come alone."

"It sounds like a code," Ned commented.

"It's supposed to," Nancy replied. "It's like the other text when they kidnapped George. I'm sure that one was a code, too, but I never figured it out. Either way, this can only mean one thing – they're back."


	17. Chapter 17

_Author's Note: Once again, thank you to everyone who has been reading and following this story. Thank you especially to everyone who has left reviews on the last chapter: EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, and BMSH._

Chapter XVII

 _Fifteen years earlier_

 _Carson met Kate at police headquarters. She was sitting up on a high stool, looking more sheepish than scared. That was a relief – it must not have been as bad as it had sounded on the phone when she had called him at the Hardy home with only a cryptic message that she had gotten into some trouble and was at the precinct._

 _"Are you all right?" Carson asked her._

 _Kate nodded. "Thanks to Officer Kelvin over there, anyway." She gestured to a woman in a police uniform who was standing off to the side._

 _"What exactly happened?" Carson looked from Kate to the officer._

 _Kate sighed. "All right. What happened was this. I decided I was jealous of you getting to work on this case, so I thought I'd try my hand at solving it myself." She grinned ruefully. "It didn't go the way I had hoped." She paused a moment, and then she went on, "You see, I thought with my newspaper connections, I could turn something up on these Moriare people. So I did some investigating and I found an old address of Cliff Moriare. At first, I had intended to turn over anything I found, but this was such a long shot. He wasn't supposed to live there anymore. So I went ahead and checked it out for myself."_

 _"Then what happened?" Carson asked as she paused._

 _"Well, I'm not exactly sure how it all happened," Kate admitted. "It was a little, run-down apartment building in the city. I went to the landlady to see if she remembered anything about Cliff. She claimed she didn't, but you should have seen how scared she looked when I mentioned it. I was certain that she remembered more than she was willing to say._

 _"I pressed the issue, and the more questions I asked, the more nervous she got. She was really trying to get me to leave. All this time, we were in her own apartment, which is in the same building. After about ten minutes of not getting anywhere, I heard the main door into the building open. The landlady completely froze and her face went completely white._

 _"I was trying to decide what to do and whether I should ask her what the problem was when someone knocked on the door of her apartment. She flinched, and I finally did ask her if she was going to answer the door. She just stared at me. Then the man at the door knocked again and asked if anyone was home._

 _"The landlady finally collected herself enough to tell me that I needed to go into the back room and stay there. I did what she said, and she went and let the man in. I couldn't help but overhear their conversation, and I realized that this man was none other than Cliff Moriare, himself, and he still has an apartment in the building. I heard something about speeding up a timetable, too, but they both seemed to know what it was about, so he didn't explain._

 _"Then – then I don't know what happened. I was being completely still and I'm sure I didn't make a sound. The landlady must have given me away somehow. Anyway, the door burst open and there's Moriare, demanding to know who I was and why I was eavesdropping. I didn't say a word. Then the landlady, who looked like she was about to die, told him who I was and that I'd been asking about him. He lost it and came at me. I managed to get past him and run down to the street, where I was fortunate enough to run straight into Officer Kelvin."_

 _"You weren't hurt at all?" Carson asked, just to be certain._

 _"No, not unless being scared to death counts as being hurt." Kate laughed._

 _Carson smiled in relief. "What happened to Moriare? Did you catch him, Officer?"_

 _"No," Officer Kelvin admitted, her face betraying some disappointment. "He must have gone out the back while I was calling for backup."_

 _Just then, Kelvin's radio crackled to life. Carson didn't understand entirely what was being said because of the police codes, but he did recognize Lieutenant Hardy's voice._

 _"Is something wrong?" he asked Kelvin, noting the urgency in Hardy's tone._

 _Kelvin frowned, but she only told the Drews to stay where they were and then left the room. Carson and Kate looked at each other in bewilderment, but it didn't appear that they would learn anything more just then._

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _As it turned out, Carson and Kate didn't learn what had happened until much later that day when Johnson had called to fill Carson in. After Jack Garnier had turned himself in, Hardy had called for extra backup to bring him and his companion – a frightened man named Kyle McDonald – into the police station. While they were waiting for them to come, Laura Hardy had driven Carson, along with her two boys, to the precinct where Carson could meet Kate and Laura, Frank, and Joe would be safe._

 _When the backup had arrived, the officers had escorted Garnier and McDonald to a police car. However, just as they reached it, they were ambushed by a sniper. As of now, Garnier had been killed and McDonald was in a coma in the hospital, not expected to survive. Two police officers had also been injured and one of them was in critical condition._

 _Carson hung up the phone, biting his lip in thought. When he told Kate the news, she too listened seriously. Both were quiet for several minutes afterwards, trying to think through how to deal with the current situation._

 _"These people aren't playing around," Kate said finally. "I was lucky I got away from Cliff Moriare, I guess."_

 _Carson nodded solemnly. "You certainly were. What bothers me is that he would recognize you if he saw you again. Did you tell the landlady your name?"_

 _"Yeah," Kate admitted haltingly. "I probably should have given a fake name. I'm sure she told Moriare who I am. But Moriare couldn't have been behind killing Garnier. I mean, there wasn't that much time, and me turning up at his apartment was bound to have thrown him off. I doubt he could have been murdering people fifteen minutes later."_

 _"There's his brother, Dan," Carson reminded her. "He could have done the actual killing. Or they could have hired someone else entirely to do it. Either way, I'm sure Cliff is involved in this and I don't like the idea of him thinking that you can provide evidence against him. You said he was talking about a timetable. He wouldn't have any way of knowing that you don't know what timetable he was talking about."_

 _"Well, what are we going to do about it?" Kate asked. "What happened, happened. We can't change it now."_

 _"Maybe not," Carson agreed. "But we can do something about what could happen now. You'd be a lot safer if you went ahead and went back to River Heights with Nancy."_

 _"Now?" Kate stared at him in surprise. "I can't just go like that. I still have to work for another week. What if the place we rented isn't available yet?"_

 _"I'll find out if it is," Carson told her. "I think it would be for the best if you left. I'll come as soon as this is cleared up. It's bound to be solved pretty soon, and if it's not, I'll come as soon as there's nothing more for me to do."_

 _Kate sighed. "I don't want to go, but I guess I see your point. It is dangerous. If it was just you and me, I wouldn't go, but – it's not just us. I've got to think of Nancy and our other son or daughter."_

 _NDNDNDNDND_

 _"Are you coming, Daddy?" Nancy asked as she waited with Carson while Kate picked up the tickets for herself and her daughter._

 _"No. I already told you I can't," Carson told her, picking her up so that she could be on eye-level. "It will just be another two weeks, at the most. Then I'll meet you and Mommy in River Heights."_

 _"I don't want to go." Nancy wrapped her arms around his neck. "I want to stay with you."_

 _"Nancy, it's okay." Kate approached her husband and daughter, tickets in hand. "Daddy will come in no time, and then it will be the three of us again – for a while, at any rate."_

 _"Are you sure you have everything you need?" Carson asked Kate._

 _"I'm positive," Kate told him. "I've been checking and rechecking mine and Nancy's bags ever since the day before yesterday. I don't see how I could have possibly forgotten anything. And if I somehow did, you can bring it with you when you come with the car. It's not like it's going to be that long."_

 _"Yeah." Now that it had come to it, Carson was having a much harder time parting with Kate and Nancy than he had thought. He knew it would be only a matter of weeks, but being away from them for even that long would be difficult._

 _Judging from Kate's expression, she was thinking the same thing. She had tried to convince Carson to let her stay several more times in the last few days, but they both knew that this was best for their children. Now Kate decided to try a different tactic._

 _"Couldn't you come with us?" she asked. "Do the police really need you? They should have enough people to handle this investigation on their own."_

 _For a moment, Carson was tempted to agree. After all, what stake did he have in this case anyway? Besides that, it had already proven to be a dangerous case. Several people had already been killed or injured. Was it really worth the risk?_

 _The question answered itself in Carson's mind. Of course, he had to do whatever he could to stop the murders from continuing. So far, everyone who had been killed had been heavily involved in the Irish Mob, but there was nothing stopping the next victim from being someone more innocent. If Carson could do anything to help, he would have to do it._

 _"No, Kate," he said finally. "I can't come until I'm finished here."_

 _Kate smiled ruefully. "I guess I didn't expect you to answer any differently. Well, I'll expect a phone call every night when you get home to make sure you're okay. And you'd better have this case solved as soon as you can. If it goes on too long, I'll think you're staying away from me on purpose."_

 _"I would never do that," Carson promised._

 _He and Kate kissed, and they stood there together with Nancy for several minutes, none of them wanting to be separated even for a short time. Finally, Kate grudgingly said that it was time to go. She took Nancy by the hand, and the two of them went through the airport security. Carson remained behind to watch them. Just before they went out of sight, Kate turned around and she and Nancy waved to him. She managed to give him a bright smile, and Carson waved back, trying to return the smile._

It will only be a little longer _, he told himself._ Then it will be the three of us again.


	18. Chapter 18

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and following this story. Thank you especially to everyone who left reviews on the last chapter: max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, BMSH, and Cherylann Rivers (for your reviews on the last three chapters)!_

Chapter XVIII

Nancy stared at the two text messages. She had written them out, word for word, several times, trying to spot how they might be a code. Nothing she had come up with yet had worked.

"'You'd been given the answer already, Nancy. JK. Be here, or wait for the arrow to point the way,'" she read aloud, and then went on to the next one, "'After two weeks, he's right here again. A Robin Hood, his trouble is deep this time. A slippery quest. 'Nd I make it easier this time. You should rea,d chapters of bo,oks 16 and 17 and come at once on this noble quest but you must come alone.'"

"Are you sure they're codes?" Ned asked, looking at the messages from across the table. "They sort of make sense on they're own. The grammar's horrendous, but that's nothing unusual in a text."

"I don't think it's an accident," Nancy disagreed. "They're too careful for that." She stared the two messages a little while longer. Suddenly she slapped her hand against her forehead. "Of course. That's it."

"What is?" Ned asked.

"It's a pretty common code, really," Nancy explained. "They just didn't quite do it the same way each time. That threw me off. You just take every second letter after a punctuation mark. The second message also includes the second letter of the entire message."

"Then the first message spells out – 'Baker'," Ned noted. "And the second one is – 'Ferris Dock'? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Probably a place," Nancy guessed. "Baker was where they wanted me to go last time, so it would make sense if they're trying to tell me to go to this Ferris Dock place. I've never heard of it before. Have you?"

"No," Ned replied. "I assume it would be on the Muskoka River, though. We can probably find out about it on the Internet. But, Nancy, I'm assuming the actual words of the text mean something, too. Is that Robin Hood character involved in this somehow?"

"Obviously, although I don't know whose side he's on," Nancy said. "I know one thing, though. I'm going to go right home and read books sixteen and seventeen of _Le Morte d'Arthur_."

Ned hurriedly paid the bill and the two went out into the winter cold. When they got back to the Drews' house, they found that Carson wasn't home yet from work. Nancy retrieved her copy of the book, but she didn't have to read long before she saw an obvious connection between it and the latest turn of events.

"The quest for the Holy Grail," she commented, looking up at Ned from the pages in front of her. "The cup that Christ used at the Last Supper. Did you read the paper this morning?"

"No," Ned replied. "Surely there wasn't anything about the Holy Grail in it."

"Not exactly," Nancy told him. "Not _the_ Holy Grail. Just the one we're supposed to be looking for. A chalice was stolen last night from the Catholic church, and someone tried to make it look pretty obvious that Robin Hood had taken."

"You don't sound like you think he did," Ned commented.

"I don't," Nancy insisted. "I have no idea why, but I'm sure these people have been using him from the beginning. And this one – it just doesn't fit him. Not at all."

"Well then, why?" Ned asked. "I mean, the chalice can't be that valuable of itself. Yeah, it's probably made of gold, but if they only took one – there must have been more things to steal in that church than just that. Something easier to get rid of, like money for example."

"I doubt that," Nancy replied. "Money, anyway. Why would they keep it there when the bank's just down the street? And it's the middle of the week, so it's not like they haven't had time to deposit their Sunday collection. But I don't think this has anything to do with money at all. I didn't solve everything, but I did ruin their plans. Or Dan Moriare did, or whatever. The point is the Sir Gareth plan didn't work. Now they're using one of the other legends to get to me."

"But why?" Ned asked again. "I don't get it. Why is somebody trying to kill you?"

"Dad played an important part in getting Moriare sent to prison on multiple murder charges fifteen years ago," Nancy explained. "Mr. Hardy was – well, he played quite a role in that, too. They're after Frank, Joe, and me because that's the best way to get revenge on Dad and Mr. Hardy."

"But you said that Dan Moriare helped you and George escape," Ned pointed out. "That doesn't sound like he's trying to kill you."

"I know," Nancy admitted, shaking her head in confusion. Nothing was making sense about this.

"What's Moriare even doing out of jail anyway?" The thought struck Ned suddenly. "You said he was sent there on multiple murder charges only fifteen years ago. That should have been a life sentence, at least."

"Yeah, uh -" Nancy sighed. "It was a very ugly case. They actually couldn't pin anything on him besides conspiracy to commit murder and complicity and that sort of thing, which he admitted to readily by that point. He'd kind of had it by then, just like everyone else. But he insisted that he hadn't committed the murders himself. He also turned some evidence on the family of the Irish Mob he had been plotting against. In view of that and some other details, he got a twenty-year sentence instead of life. He got out five years early on good behavior."

"What other details?" Ned insisted. "You didn't say it like it was just legal technicalities or anything like that. Don't start keeping secrets from me now, Nancy?"

Nancy gave a pained smiled. "If I tell you, you've got to promise not to tell Frank or Joe about this. The short version of the story is that things did not go according to plan when Mr. Hardy and the other detective on the case went to arrest the Moriare brothers. Dan could have -"

Her story was interrupted by the doorbell. She and Ned looked at one another, both of them having a feeling that somehow the ringing bell didn't bode well for them. Slowly, Nancy got up to go answer the door. Ned followed her, just in case his intuition was right and this meant trouble.

When Nancy opened the door, she found a man who was about thirty on the doorstep. Although he was very ordinary looking in many ways, there was something in his manner that could only be described as dashing. There was also something very familiar about him.

"Can I help you?" Nancy asked.

"Yeah, I think so," the man replied.

The moment he spoke, the mysterious familiarity about him was instantly explained. "You!" Nancy said. "What are you doing here?"

"Because I decided to swallow my pride and admit you were right and then ask you for help because I can trust you," the man told her. "Can I come in?"

Nancy stepped away from the door to let him through, while Ned looked on in curiosity. He shot a questioning glance at Nancy, who immediately understood.

"This is Ned Nickerson. You can trust him as much as you can trust me," Nancy explained. "And you are?"

"You can call me Robin," the man said with a grin.

"Wait – you're Robin Hood?" Ned realized.

"That's right," Nancy confirmed. "What's your real name, Robin? If you can trust me with seeing your face, you can trust me with telling me your name."

"That is my real name actually, or close enough," Robin replied. "Robert Worthing. Usually go by Rob, but you really can call me Robin since that's what you're used to."

"So you go around masquerading as someone with practically the same name as you while you steal from people," Ned commented. "That's pretty bold, don't you think?"

Robin shrugged. "No one's figured it out yet. The only ones that know are the handful or less that I've told. But there's no time to worry about all of that. You were right, Nancy, and now I've got to come to on my hands and knees, begging you to help get out of the mess I've gotten myself into. And if you don't believe that any of that is very painful, then maybe you're not as great a detective as I've been led to believe."

"This is about the chalice, right?" Nancy asked.

"Right," Robin replied. "You were right and the whole robbing the rich thing wasn't a good idea after all. I didn't steal that chalice. I wouldn't steal from any church – not the money that's going to the church and that was meant to go to the church. But stealing from a Catholic church – stealing a chalice from a Catholic church -" He shook his head. "You see, I actually am Catholic and stealing that is a very big deal."

"Okay," Nancy said. "So you want me to help clear your name. Your fake name, anyway, since very few people know what Robin Hood's real name is."

"That's right," Robin affirmed. "I'll be eternally grateful to you if you do. I'd like to get that chalice back, too. Like I said, stealing it is a pretty big deal."

"Getting it back is the best way to clear you anyway," Nancy told him. "Do you know who stole it?"

Robin bit his lip and nodded. "Yeah, I think so. There was something I didn't tell you the first time we met."

"Only one thing?" Nancy raised her eyebrow good-naturedly at him.

"Maybe more than one," Robin replied with a grin. "Apart from the obvious ones, I didn't tell you why I had been in that castle earlier and had seen George and talked to some of the people who had kidnapped her. They weren't the ones behind it. I'm sure of that. They were just teenagers. Not even as old as you are."

"What would kids that age be doing mixed up in something like this?" Ned asked.

"Who knows?" Robin asked. "I had met them in town earlier that day. They gave their names as Dwayne Sventer and Summer Merle."

Nancy straightened up at this bit of info. Those were the names of the teenagers George had said she had talked to shortly before she was kidnapped. A suspicion began to form in Nancy's mind, but she decided to let it wait until Robin had finished his story.

"They had somehow found out about the Robin Hood thing," he continued. "They said they wanted to help me. I was skeptical about it, but I couldn't just let it slide. After all, it I didn't do what they want, they might just have gone to the police. They asked me to meet them at the castle later that night. They sent me through the maze, but I think they had part of it blocked off or something. It was much easier then than it was when you and I tried to get through.

"I met George and I couldn't get her out. She didn't trust me very much. All right, I was wearing my mask and all, so I can't really blame her. She said if I was serious about trying to help her, I should go to Nancy Drew or the police and show them where she was. I tried to leave, but I met Dwayne and Summer before I could get out. I was sure by that time that I was not interested in their proposition and that they weren't in a position to get me in trouble with the police if I told them so, but I listened anyway so I could find out what was going on.

"They told me that they were working on a plan involving using plotlines from books to get revenge for some wrong that had been done to them, and since my act fit in, they were wondering if I could help. I told them I wasn't interested. They said I'd help them whether I wanted to or not, but if I didn't do it willingly, they'd make sure I'd regret it. I still told them I wasn't interested and I wouldn't help them. Then they explained why I would help them anyway.

"I was the only one besides them and the other people working with them who knew where George was. I was going to go to Nancy Drew, tell her I was the Green Knight, and lead her to the castle and into a trap. Then I had to admit to myself that I knew perfectly well I was going to have to play into their hands, because obviously I had to help George out. So that's how it was."

"And you didn't see any reason to tell Nancy about that until now?" Ned asked, disgust showing in his tone.

"Uh, yeah, I guess," Robin admitted, looking sheepish for the first time. "I told her the main thing – that it was a trap."

"It's okay," Nancy said. "Knowing the rest wouldn't have helped me all that much at that moment. It wouldn't have changed my mind."

"Wouldn't it have?" Robin asked. "I didn't like taking you to that castle, you know. I felt it was wrong, but like someone was somehow using me as a puppet. It was weird."

Nancy stared at him for a moment before she said, "What's weird is how many people keep saying that. I felt it too, and Dad said he did and Mr. Hardy, and I'm pretty sure Frank, too, but I haven't gotten him to admit it yet." She shook her head after a few seconds. "I'm sure there's an explanation. Let's not worry about that now. Right now, we've got to just finish this mystery off. Just a second. There's something I want to show you, Robin."

She dashed off upstairs and grabbed her laptop. When she brought it back down, she opened two pictures on it and put them side-by-side on the screen before showing it to Robin. "Are these Dwayne and Summer, by any chance?"

Robin started with surprise. "Yeah. That's them. How do have pictures of them?"

"I should have asked George about this earlier," Nancy berated herself. "These two are also known as Terry Shanth and Clarissa Margot."


	19. Chapter 19

_Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading and following this story! Thank you especially to EvergreenDreamweaver and max2013 for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XIX

"Okay, so what's our plan here?" Ned asked. It had turned out to be a very strange date, but that's how things usually went with Nancy. One minute, they were in a coffee shop having a cup of coffee and the next they were making plans with a known thief to take down a gang of murderers, kidnappers, and who knew what else.

"We need to find out what this Ferris Dock place is," Nancy replied.

"Ferris Dock?" Robin repeated. "That's over near Baker. It's not usually called that anymore, though. That was just its nickname thirty years ago when a guy named Ferris drowned just off of it. They never could figure out exactly what happened."

"Then that must be it," Nancy said. "That was easy. Too easy. But then, I guess it should be obvious that this is another trap."

"The text says they want you to go alone," Ned reminded her. "You're not going to. That's not a question."

Nancy shook her head. "No, I'm not going to. Uh, Ned, could I talk to you privately for a second?"

She and Ned stepped to the side and held a whispered conference. Throughout it, they stole a few furtive glances at Robin, as he was the topic of their discussion.

"We can't trust him," Nancy said. "I'd like to, and I honestly don't think he's in with these people, but I can't take the chance of just trusting him."

"Why not?" Ned asked. "He did help rescue George, and it's a long step from playing Robin Hood to joining in with murderers."

"I know, but they've played a similar game before," Nancy explained. She whispered a few highlights of the story of the original Moriare case.

"You're kidding me, right?" Ned stared at her when she'd finished. "That's dedication to a cause. I hope they paid him well."

"Never mind that," Nancy replied with a touch of impatience. "The point is, we can't trust Robin."

"Then we've just got to figure out a way to get him to leave," Ned said. "We'll just tell him we can take care of this ourselves, he can leave his number, and we'll call him when we get results."

Nancy shook her head. "We're better off if we can keep an eye on him. A constant eye. We have to make sure he doesn't report to anyone in any way." She paused. "There is one thing in his favor. When we were staking out Jim's Grill, I saw him go into it. There were a couple of teenagers that he ran into and none of them seemed happy to see each other. I'll just bet they were Clarissa and Terry, although I couldn't see their faces."

"It doesn't prove anything," Ned told her. "At least, nothing definite one way or the other. We're going to need some more people to deal with this. I don't suppose the police are an option?"

"They are," Nancy told him, "just not yet. We'll call them in later. For now, we need Dad, Burt, Dave, and any other guys you can think of who might be willing to help."

"Okay. There's a few I could call," Ned agreed.

He pulled out his smartphone and began sending texts, deciding that this was a better way than calling to make sure Robin didn't overhear. Meanwhile, Nancy tried to place a call to Carson, but he didn't answer. With a little bit of disappointment, she left a message on his phone for him to call her as soon as he could.

"Are we going to go?" Robin asked after a while. "Or do you have a different plan, Nancy?"

"Have any of them gotten back to you yet, Ned?" Nancy inquired.

Ned shook his head. "No. What about your dad?"

"Nothing," Nancy replied. "By the time we get to Baker, it will be dark. That's probably what they want."

"But if they said you should be there, and you don't go -" Robin paused. "How do you make up your mind about things like this?"

"I'm going to have to get some advice," Nancy said. "You guys stay here. This shouldn't take too long."

She hurried into another room and closed the door. She placed a call to Frank's phone and waited for him to answer. When he did, the first thing she said was, "Are you at home, Frank?"

"Yeah," Frank told her. "Just studying for midterms. What's going on? Have you had a break in the case?"

"Sort of. At any rate, something has come up with it," Nancy replied. "Is Joe there?"

"He's in his room," Frank said. "I'll see if he wants to talk."

"Good," Nancy told him. "I could really use help from both of you."

There was a pause for a minute or two in which Nancy could only hear Frank's muffled voice. Then Frank came back on, his voice taking on the more distant and less clear sound of being on speaker phone.

"You still there, Nance?" he asked.

"Mm hmm," Nancy replied. "Is Joe there?"

"Hi, Nancy," Joe said. "What's going on?"

Nancy quickly explained the situation from the coded text to the current dilemma. "What do you think I should do? Should I go now? Should I wait? What?"

Both the Hardys were quiet as they considered the issue. Finally, Joe spoke up, "Nancy, if Terry Shanth is involved in this, then it is definitely a trap. I don't think you should risk it."

Nancy bit her tongue before she could say anything. That was so unlike Joe to be the one advising caution to the point of throwing away the chance to solve a mystery. "What do you think, Frank?" was all she said.

Frank seemed just a little bit caught off guard. "Um. I agree with Joe that it's definitely a trap. What's going to happen if you don't go?"

"Who knows?" Nancy replied.

Frank sighed. "I know what'll happen. They'll get away and maybe they'll decide to disappear again or maybe they won't. Either way, it doesn't matter. They're determined to get us and they will sooner or later, and they will if we don't stop them. You've got to get help, Nance, and you've got to put a stop to this once and for all."

"Right," Nancy agreed. "The police then?"

"Yeah. It'll still be risky, but –" Frank began, but Joe interrupted.

"Risky? It's going to more than that. It'll be suicide. The police were there last time, and –" He let out his breath. "It didn't do too much good."

Both Nancy and Frank were quiet for a minute, considering the problem. Finally, Nancy spoke up, "You've got a point, Joe. These people are dangerous. The trouble is that it's not a matter of deciding whether or not to chase after them. We're involved either way, and it's going to catch up with us sooner or later. Tonight I've got a chance to meet them as much on my own terms as I ever will have. It's not much – not much at all, but it's better than nothing. I'm going to do it. I'll have the Baker police waiting there, and we'll get these people once and for all."

NDNDNDNDND

Nancy tried to call Carson several times, but had no luck getting him to answer. Finally, since they didn't have much time to spare before it got dark, she, Ned, and Robin left for Baker. The police there were more than willing to cooperate and said they would be in place at the dock in case the Moriare gang should turn up there.

On the way to Baker, Nancy and her companions put the finishing touches to their last-minute plan. After making sure the police were in place, Nancy would go ahead and go to the dock, while Ned and Robin would hang back with the police. Neither were too enthusiastic about the plan, but Nancy reminded him that they wouldn't get anywhere unless she at least looked like she had come alone.

It was dark by the time they got to Baker. After dropping Ned and Robin off with the police, Nancy drove to the dock and parked her car. It was too dark and cold to get out, so all she did was park, hoping someone would make some contact with her.

As the minutes dragged on slowly, Nancy began to wonder if maybe she had the wrong idea about what she was supposed to do at Ferris Dock. After all, the text hadn't said anything about someone meeting her there. It had only said to go there. Maybe some message had been left for her there, and she wouldn't see it if she just sat in her car in the dark.

She let a little more time pass. Then she zipped up her coat and pulled her gloves on. Using her flashlight in an attempt to spot some sign or message on the darkened dock, she began walking around the area. She was starting to shiver and was just about to give up the search for tonight when she spotted something in a bush about a stone's throw from the dock.

As she picked it up, she realized that it was a large shoebox. Curiously and a bit cautiously, she removed the cover and looked inside. There was something within wrapped in paper. She unwrapped a small corner and saw a gleam of gold in her flashlight's beam. It was no difficult matter to guess what the object was.

Shaking her head in bewilderment, she carried the box to where the police were waiting with Ned and Robin. She handed the box to the officer in charge of the operation, explaining, "I think this is the stolen chalice from the church in River Heights."

The officer removed the paper and nodded. "It certainly looks like it."

"I have to admit," Nancy said, still confused about the whole thing, "it was disappointingly easy to find."

"That's kind of how it was in the book, too," Ned told her. "I mean, you hear so much about the Quest for the Holy Grail, and then it turns out that the Grail wasn't even really lost."

"Well," Robin spoke up in an admirably indifferent voice, "it looks like Robin Hood is cleared for that one."

"Not necessarily," the head officer replied. "Just because we found the chalice doesn't mean that Robin Hood didn't steal it."

"But clearly the people who have been tormenting Miss Drew stole it," Robin protested. "They told her just where it was, after all."

"But how do we know that Robin Hood isn't in league with these people?" the officer pointed out. "Even if he isn't, though, there are plenty of charges against him to put him away a long time."

Robin barely perceptibly squirmed. "Aren't you skipping the rather important step of capturing him before he can be 'put away'?"

"Thanks to Miss Drew, that's practically taken care of already," the officer announced.

"What?" The word was echoed by Nancy, Ned, and Robin, the last of whom suddenly dropped his bravado and became pale.

The officer either didn't notice or ignored the surprise in Nancy's voice and face as he continued, "Thank you, Miss Drew, for phoning in that tip about this fellow and then letting him lead you here to collect the evidence."

"But I –" Nancy tried to protest.

"You told them?" Robin asked, looking utterly betrayed.

"No," Nancy insisted.

Robin sighed heavily. "I should have seen it. You said you couldn't promise not to tell anyone. I thought, given the circumstances -"

"But I didn't," Nancy insisted.

"I guess that's the phone call you went to make privately," Robin continued. "You did seem a lot more eager to come after you made that call."

"No." Nancy shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. "You should probably stop talking now."

"Yes, let me read you your rights first," the officer interjected.

As he went through the formalities of arresting Robin, Nancy stepped back, trying to figure out what was happening. Ned, who was similarly bewildered by the situation, followed her.

"You didn't really tell the police about him, did you?" Ned asked.

"No." Nancy spoke almost sharply. "I didn't. I wouldn't have. I mean – I don't know what I mean. It's a weird situation to be in as a detective, and I didn't want to be in it. Knowing the identity of a thief whom I absolutely did not want to turn in, that is. I don't know how the police found out."

"Someone must have called them," Ned told her. "Whoever it was must have said she was you. Who even knew who Robin is besides the two of us?"

Nancy thought for a moment and then the answer came to her with sudden clarity. "Terry Shanth, Clarissa Margot, Lynn Morgan."

Ned threw his head back and groaned. "Right. But why? What do they have against Robin now?"

"This is what they said they'd do to him if he didn't cooperate with them," Nancy reminded him. "And I guess it's an extra piece of vengeance against me to have him think I turned him in."

NDNDNDNDND

A little while later, Nancy and Ned took rooms in the hotel, intending to drive back to River Heights the next morning. Nancy was still feeling dejected as she unlocked her room and went inside. When she turned the light on, she was startled to see a woman sitting on her bed.

"Nancy Drew," the woman greeted her. "I think it's time we had a talk."


	20. Chapter 20

_Author's Note: As always, thank you so much for reading and following this story. Thank you especially to everyone who has left reviews on the last chapter: max2013, BMSH (and for your review on chapter 18 as well!), Tinee Dancer, EvergreenDreamweaver, and Cherylann Rivers (also for your review on chapter 18!)._

 _As you'll notice, this chapter is short. I sort of felt it didn't need to be long, though. I wrote more, but then I decided that it wasn't really necessary and a short chapter here would be more effective anyway._

Chapter XX

 _Fifteen years earlier_

 _A week had gone by since Kate and Nancy had gone back to River Heights. Carson was glad that he had a lot to keep his mind occupied because he felt their absence sharply. As it was, he had kept busy investigating the Moriare family. He had also spent most of his time in the past week with Fenton and Mitch – he had come to call Hardy and Johnson by their first names – and their constant bantering had helped cheer him._

 _Today hadn't been a particularly exciting day. For the most part, Carson and the two officers had spent the entire time going through the records for all the members of the Moriare family with a fine-tooth comb, as well as reviewing the case of Randy Moriare's murder. By late afternoon, all three of them felt as if their brains were cramped from the monotonous work._

 _Each was getting ready to suggest calling it a day when the phone rang. Fenton answered it. Although he didn't say much into the receiver, it was obviously good news._

 _"What's going on?" Mitch asked, stifling a yawn, as Fenton hung the phone up._

 _"We've got it," Fenton replied. "We've been issued warrants for the arrests of Clifford and Daniel Moriare."_

 _"All right," Mitch said gladly. "That's great. I say we go celebrate."_

 _"We've still got to catch them," Carson reminded him. "That might not be too easy."_

 _Mitch shrugged. "We know where they are. All our work this last week did that much, at least. I still say we go celebrate. Steak sounds good to me. You two coming? I'm buying."_

 _The others couldn't deny that steak did sound good. After reporting to the detectives' superior where they would be, the three of them headed for a steakhouse that Mitch knew well._

 _The news about the arrest warrants was really a great relief to them, even if they were too tired to say much about it. However, their relief could be seen in how much more relaxed they were at their meal than they had been for what seemed a long time._

 _"So how are you enjoying the bachelor life, Carson?" Mitch asked after a while. "It's nice to be able to come and go when you want, huh?"_

 _"I wouldn't know," Carson replied. "When I get home in the evening – or the early morning, whichever it is – I just go straight to bed."_

 _"Boring," Mitch told him. "You really need to learn how to enjoy this part of your life. It's not going to last forever."_

 _"Thank goodness for that," Carson said. "You know, being married isn't as bad as people like to make it out."_

 _"See?" Fenton interjected. "I've been telling you that for years, Mitch. You shouldn't knock it if you haven't tried it."_

 _Mitch shrugged. "Eh. If I ever feel like I'm ready for my life to be over, I might think about getting married."_

 _Fenton shook his head. "I should just give up. You're a hopeless case." He turned to Carson. "How's Kate doing? Do you have a place back there already?"_

 _"A friend helped us rent a place," Carson replied. "Kate was able to move right in. She says she's keeping herself busy decorating it and making the rounds of all the thrift stores to get furniture."_

 _"Hopefully you're not going to be too broke by the time you get there," Mitch said._

 _"I graduated from law school not too long ago," Carson told him. "I don't think we can get much more broke after that."_

 _"Excuse me." A waitress came up to their table. "Is one of you Carson Drew? I have a phone call for you from a Sergeant McGinnis. He says it's urgent."_

 _A knot formed in Carson's stomach at the words. McGinnis was an old friend of his and a sergeant in the River Heights Police Department. Urgent calls from police officers back home were seldom good news. Excusing himself, he followed the waitress to take the call._

 _"This is Carson Drew," he said, picking up the receiver._

 _McGinnis identified himself again. Any hope that Carson's fears were unfounded were crushed by McGinnis's somber tone. "Carson, I'm afraid I've got some bad news. There's been an accident. Kate was involved."_

 _Carson felt as if he was being suffocated. He only barely managed to ask in a frightened, high-pitched voice, "Is – is she –?"_

 _"I'm sorry, Carson," McGinnis said._

 _With a sudden lightheadedness and trembling in his knees, Carson grasped the edge of the counter that the phone was on, for fear he wouldn't be able to hold himself up otherwise. "You mean –"_

 _"Yes," McGinnis told him._

 _The world seemed to be reeling around Carson now, but it didn't matter to him. Right now, nothing much mattered to him. If the entire world came to a sudden, crashing end at that moment, Carson probably wouldn't have even noticed. Finally, into his shocked and benumbed mind came another thought – the one thought that could make a difference now._

 _"Is Nancy all right?" he asked, his voice cracked._

 _"She's fine," McGinnis replied. "She wasn't in the car. She was at a friend's house. She is pretty scared, though. We didn't tell her what happened, but she seems to have figured it out."_

 _"Where is she now?" Carson asked._

 _"She's with your neighbors, the Marvins," McGinnis said. "They have a daughter just her age and they're willing to let her stay with them until you can get there."_

 _"I'll be on the first plane," Carson replied mechanically._

 _He tried to hang up the phone, but he missed the receiver's cradle altogether. Forgetting that he hadn't brought his own car, he dazedly headed toward the entrance of the restaurant. Fortunately, Fenton and Mitch noticed and they were at his side before he reached the door._

 _Noticing Carson's stricken expression, Fenton asked him, "What happened?"_

 _"Kate." Carson's voice cracked so much that the word was barely audible. "There – there was an accident." He took in a shuddering breath and felt his eyes grow watery as he was forced to say the words._

 _Neither of the officers said a word for a moment, being too stunned by the unexpected tragedy. Then they seemed to shake themselves and realize that they needed to take charge of the situation._

 _Fenton placed a hand on Carson's shoulder. "I'm really sorry. I – Let's get out of here."_

 _While Mitch paid for their only half-finished meal, Fenton ushered Carson out of the restaurant and to the unmarked police car they had come in. As they waited for Mitch, Fenton prudently didn't say much._

 _Mitch arrived a couple of minutes later and climbed into the driver's seat. "Where do you want to go?" he asked Carson._

 _"I need to get to River Heights at once," Carson replied absently._

 _"Right," Mitch agreed, "but where do you want to go until we can get you a plane to River Heights?"_

 _Carson tried to collect his thoughts. "Uh. My sister's, I guess. She lives in my apartment building."_

 _It took them over an hour to reach the apartment building. Carson was grateful that the two officers had taken the front seats and left the back seat all to him. As good friends as they had proven to be, Carson felt the need to be able to sit out of their line of sight. He was glad, however, that they were there when they arrived at Eloise's apartment, because he didn't feel that he could tell the terrible news a second time. The officers broke it for him._

 _Eloise, naturally, was shocked. Fenton and Mitch did their best to console both her and her brother, but there never is much that can be done at such a moment. Finally, Carson said again that he needed to get back to River Heights as soon as possible. Immediately, Eloise said that she'd go with him. Mitch offered to call the airline and get tickets for them._

Present day


	21. Chapter 21

_Author's Note: Thank you so much to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and BMSH for your reviews on the last chapter!_

Chapter XXI

Nancy hesitated in the doorway when she saw the woman sitting on her bed, staring at her in a half-annoyed, half-gloating manner. For a moment, Nancy's first thought was to retreat, but she thought better of it. The woman may have accomplices, and it may be safer to wait and see what the situation was exactly.

There was one thing Nancy did think of to do, which she considered might be of some use. Her phone was in one of her coat pockets. There was an app on it that would begin recording sound as soon as she opened it. She had used it often enough that that she could find the shortcut for it without looking at the screen, so she casually put her hands in her pockets and opened the app.

"You don't seem so taken off guard," the woman observed. "Surely you didn't expect this?"

"No," Nancy admitted. There was something in the way the woman spoke and her expressions that was familiar.

"Well, then, you have rather a talent for staying composed," the woman said. "I suppose it comes in handy in your detective work."

"Sometimes," Nancy replied, suddenly recognizing the woman. "You're very good with disguises. That must be useful in your line of work, Lynn. Or should I say Helena?"

A smile crept over the woman's face. "I'm impressed. And you're right. A good knowledge of make-up and such is very useful for my line of work."

Nancy took a step farther into the room. "You know, I'm not entirely sure what you're line of work is. Arranging other people's revenge?"

Again, a bemused expression crossed the woman's face. "So you haven't guessed? I thought you might have by now. I'll let you continue to think about it. You might figure it out."

"Then why are you here?" Nancy asked. "Please say you didn't just come here to gloat about how clever you are."

"No," the woman said. "No, fun as that might be, that's not why I'm here. I need to ask you a question and I need to ask it face-to-face. Did Moriare help you and your friends escape from the castle?"

The abruptness of the question startled Nancy. She hesitated a moment and then said, "Do you think he would have?" The moment the words were out of her mouth, Nancy silently berated herself. She might as well have just said yes.

The woman nodded. "I see. That's all I needed to know. After all, if there is a traitor in the midst of my operation, he'll have to be dealt with."

"That's all you wanted to know?" Nancy asked. "And you're just going to believe me, just like that? Interesting. It's not what I would have expected."

"No, I suppose not," the woman replied. "But I know you're not lying, not unless you're much better at acting than I believe, but I don't think so."

The woman made a move to get up, but Nancy asked her, "Why did you tell the police about Robin and then blame it on me?"

"Why not?" the woman asked. "It's what I said I would do, and you hardly think I would use my own name in tipping the police off. Besides, you think enough of him that you didn't want the police to catch him. It seemed fitting to me to arrange it so that he would sit in prison, thinking the worst of you. It's a little added satisfaction, considering that I'll have to put my plans aside for a while now."

Nancy raised an eyebrow. "You are? Why? And most of all, why would you tell me?"

"I think you'll figure that out before all is over," the woman replied. She stood up and walked toward the window. "Until we meet again, Nancy Drew."

"Wait!" Nancy took another step forward, not wanting to allow the woman to escape. "Who are you?"

The woman had her back to Nancy by this time. She flashed a smile over her shoulder as she opened the window. "If you knew that, you would never stop hunting me until one or the other of us were dead." With that completely unsatisfactory answer, she climbed out the window.

Nancy dashed after her, eager to see which way she went when she climbed down. She couldn't help but feel a shudder when she saw the strange woman nowhere either below or above the window. Not only that, but Nancy could see no place that anyone could climb along the side of the building, particularly not in the dark and in the icy cold. Shaking her head in utter bewilderment, Nancy took her phone from her pocket, turned off the recording, and called the police.

NDNDNDNDND

The police found no trace of the woman or of Dan Moriare or Terry Shanth or Clarissa Margot either that night or in the weeks that followed. All of them seemed to have vanished. Nancy had also tried to find some lead, but all her efforts were unrewarded.

At least, all of her efforts to find the woman and her accomplices were unrewarded. Nancy spent a great deal of time in the weeks after the woman's disappearance thinking over everything that had happened and everything she had learned. With alarming rapidity, things started falling into place. Who this woman was and how she and Terry and Clarissa fit into the case all came together. Then, with a cold feeling of either anger or dread, a possible meaning to the woman's parting words dawned on Nancy. She couldn't tell anyone else – not even Ned or Carson – but she swore to herself to learn the truth.

NDNDNDNDND

Nancy couldn't remember a case that had left such a bitter taste in her mouth. It had stirred up so many old memories and emotions, and it had changed things that Nancy had hoped would never change. Carson and Ned were far more protective of Nancy after it than they ever had been before, and Nancy began to feel a little bit stifled, although she herself was constantly looking over her shoulder, knowing that her mysterious enemies were still out there. She could find no comfort from Frank and Joe either. In fact, it made it worse to talk to them, because Joe continued to be distant and quiet and content to focus on other things besides mysteries. This change hurt worst of all.

Nancy was able to stay busy in one task, which she felt an obligation to fulfill to the best of her abilities. She had asked her dad to represent Robin when he was tried, as well as Jim, the owner of Jim's Grill, who had hidden Robin's purloined cash and couldn't help but to be implicated once Robin's story came out. Nancy made it her personal mission to find evidence that every penny Robin had stolen had gone to someone in need.

This wasn't easy to do, considering that anyone who had accepted money from Robin knowing that it had been stolen would also be implicated in the crime. Fortunately, Robin and Jim had distributed the money anonymously and those who had benefited didn't necessarily know where the money had come from, and most had been too desperate to question it. Additionally, both Robin's and Jim's financial records checked out, neither showing any income out of the ordinary that could have been from the robberies. It didn't prove matters conclusively, but it was a definite help.

However, all the evidence and witnesses Nancy and Carson could find only reduced the sentence to the minimum – three years. Nancy left the courthouse with tears stinging her cheeks. She had done everything she could, but it hadn't been enough. And to make matters worse, Robin still believed that Nancy had been the one who had turned him in.

NDNDNDNDND

It was an unusually cold day in late March when Nancy met with Frank and Joe in the busy coffeeshop on the first floor of her aunt's apartment building. It was Frank and Joe's spring break, and they had decided to spend a few days together with Nancy in New York.

Nancy glanced behind her as she sat down, but then she stopped herself. With a half-grin, she said, "It's getting to be force of habit."

"It's not a bad habit to have," Joe commented rather dismally.

"Well, let's not worry about it now," Nancy suggested. "It's all I've thought about for months, it feels like. I'm just glad that Dad actually let me come here by myself after the way he's been worrying about me."

"You're not really by yourself, though," Frank pointed out. "You're staying with your aunt, and you came to meet us."

"True," Nancy admitted. "It's better than nothing, though. So, how have you guys been? We haven't seen each other for ages."

There was a brief pause as Frank glanced at Joe and Joe looked away. Finally, Frank said, "Things could be worse. It's been a little slow, but maybe that's not such a bad thing. It turns out senior year of high school is a lot of work."

"Tell me about it," Nancy replied, recalling how busy her life had been a year ago when she had been finishing high school. "At least you're not bored without any cases to work on."

Joe made a face like he was about to respond to that, but he didn't get the chance. Their conversation was interrupted by a loud crash from the lobby of the apartment building and a cry of "Stop! Thief!" Nancy and the Hardys turned around just in time to see a figure disappearing through the lobby doors onto the street.

The three sleuths took a moment to cast questioning glances at each other. Then, understanding each other without saying a word, they all grinned. In a moment, they had gotten to their feet and were in pursuit of the thief.

 _Author's Note: Once again, thank you all so much for reading, following, and reviewing this story. Thank you in particular to Tinee Dancer, sm2003495, max2013, Iheartninjago2010, Guest, EvergreenDreamweaver, Cherylann Rivers, and BMSH for your reviews on this story. I'm so grateful for your support._

 _All right. So we've got one more story to go until this trilogy comes to an end. That's the reason for the perhaps less-than-satisfying ending here. It's also the reason why I am not giving very much away about who Lynn Morgan/Helena Markovich is and how she fits in, how Terry and Clarissa fit in, etc. All of that will finally be revealed in Part 3._

 _Part 3 will be titled_ A Final Chapter _. Yeah, I know, not very original, but it does fit. It will be focused on Nancy and the Hardys fairly equally. As it's going right now, Nancy does actually get a little more focus, but just a little bit. That being said, Part 3 is not complete yet. While my stories generally aren't completely finished when I begin posting them, I do like to have enough done that if work or school or life or whatever keeps me from working on it for a week or so, I'll still have a few chapters to post in that time. That being said, it will probably be at least two weeks before I begin posting it._

 _Finally, I'd like to thank you all one more time for all of your support!_


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